A Tenuous Trust
by xFreakx
Summary: Finally! In the seventh chapter of xFreakx's interfic (albeit a short one, there's an author's note and everything) the kids attend a club fair at school, and certain things are not as they seemed.
1.

Disclaimer!!! X-Men Evolution belongs to Marvel Comics and the Kids WB. I do not own it in any way shape or form, nor do I intend to make any money off of this thing. It's for everyone's enjoyment (at least I hope ;) and that's all. The characters belong to their respective creators, and are used with permission. Yay! Fun! Enjoy! And anyone whose character will be involved or is involved, there's a small note for you at the bottom.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The gabled house on the outskirts of the city, several miles away from the highway, was an eavesdropper's heaven. The trees outside were thick and shady; there were numerous groves and clearings in which to hide. The gray shutters and blue siding hid a wealth of secrets, and the snoop that managed to gain entrance would find much to occupy them... Imagine, for a moment, that you are that person, a detective rooting for secrets in someone else's home.  
  
You might find information that would make you rich. There might be horrible, terrible secrets...  
  
X  
  
"Er, I'm really, really sorry," Lee Nelson said, looking, crimson-faced at the wet sheets, "This is so embarrassing."  
  
"Don't worry about it," Mark told the teenager kindly, "It happens to everyone. Sometimes you just lose control."  
  
"I know, but... I was having this weird dream..."  
  
"Don't worry, Lee," the older man repeated, eyeing the girl as they both stripped away the sodden blankets, "It's difficult for mutants to keep control of their powers, especially at such a young age."  
  
She sighed deeply and placed a small stuffed animal on a shelf to dry; its ears hung limply over its face, damp and forlorn. "I know. I do, really."  
  
"Good," Mark said, with a cheerful smile. He was almost a foot taller than Lee; in some of the lower rooms of the house he was forced to duck through the doors. Carrot-colored hair stuck out in wings over his ears, and he had a slightly goofy, youthful appearance. He was still in boxers and undershirt; the early morning emergency had roused him straight from bed.  
  
A dusky face popped back into the room and instantly let out a moan of dismay. "Lee, -again-?" Jenna Sintor complained. The water had seeped to her side of the dormitory and made the carpet around her bed damp and soggy. She took angry footsteps across the room, squishing on the soggy rug as she went, and examined the damage. "Mark, can I -please- change room mates?" she asked, suddenly sounding much nicer than when she'd been talking to her classmate.  
  
Mark scratched his head and examined the two girls, one sheepishly pushing the glasses further up her nose, the other glaring at the mess that had been created on the floor. "I'm sorry, Jen, but I think you're going to have to work it out between yourselves. That's part of what the Institute's all about. Besides... You haven't slept here all week, you've been in the garage." He yawned abruptly. "Now, I'm going to go get some coffee."  
  
Lee shrugged at Jenna with an absent smile. "Coffee sounds like a good idea to me. Care to stop by the kitchen?"  
  
Jenna gave her a long, wordless look, and stomped out of the room.  
  
X  
  
Leanna Shaw Nelson was her full name, but she was rarely, if ever called that. Whether it was too unusual, or there was some hidden reason against its use, the girl just found it easier to go by the moniker Lee. It always caused some confusion with new recruits, but they got used to the nicknames quickly enough. They had to, because there were code names to remember as well.  
  
"Lee, Lee!" someone called.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Just the person I wanted to see," Daniele said, hurrying over. The second member of the trio of adults running the Institute, she was tall, with dark brown hair, skin, and eyes. Her hair, though fairly short, curled tightly upward, and her voice, when she spoke, was deep and had a Portuguese accent, although her English was perfect. At the moment, she was carrying a large pile of laundry, and her eyes peeped over the top.  
  
"Really?" Lee asked dubiously.  
  
"Don't sound so surprised," Daniele admonished her.  
  
"Er, okay, I won't, but... why?"  
  
"Well, we've a new recruit this morning, and I want you to show him around."  
  
"Uh, am I really the best person to do that?"  
  
Daniele shifted the laundry around, as several silk shirts threatened to slip out of the sides. "You have been here the longest, Lee, and even if you're not our most dedicated student, you know the Institute inside and out. Look, I've got to run before I drop all of these clean clothes on the floor and it will be your fault."  
  
"Okay, okay, I understand... Where is he?"  
  
"Living room," Daniele said, giving her a stern look (inasmuch as any expression could be seen, over the top of the clothes). "Don't mess this up, please."  
  
"Okay, okay," Lee repeated.  
  
"Good. Boa sorte."  
  
"Good luck, yeah, I need it," Lee muttered. "Me, a tour guide. Bah." She dragged her scuffed sneakers down the stairs, idly tucking her hair behind her ears as she went. It popped out again, as it always did, so she changed nervous habits, and pushed the glasses further up the bridge of her nose, where they'd been slipping. A crash and a tinkling noise in the living room made her pick up her pace, jogging down two stairs at a time.  
  
Lee poked her head into the room. "What happened?" she demanded, looking curiously at the boy who must be the newest recruit. He was tall, with rather messy brown hair and blueish gray eyes. He was actually, she thought, with some embarrassment, not bad looking at all, even if he did look mortified.  
  
"Uh - I, uh - I'm really sorry. Really, really sorry, but that picture just fell and the glass broke. It's, um, a part of my mutation." He looked slightly defensive, but mostly apologetic.  
  
"It's okay," Lee said, conveniently forgetting her own embarrassment that morning, "My roommate's pissed because I accidentally soaked her bed. It happens." She put a chair on top of the broken glass. "There. That should keep anyone from accidentally stepping in it."  
  
"Are you sure? It looked kind of expensive..."  
  
"Don't worry, no one liked that picture, anyway," Lee said truthfully, "You're doing us a favor."  
  
The boy sighed, and glanced at his shoes. "Great. What a way to start out my first day here..."  
  
"I said, don't worry about it," Lee said. "Daniele gets angry if she hears anyone angsting about their powers."  
  
"It's not angst," he said defensively, "It's... Impractical?"  
  
"Look, let's forget about it, okay? I'm Lee. Lee Nelson." She held out a hand to shake.  
  
"Cameron D'Amore. Uh, just call me Cam." They shook hands in a friendly manner, and then Cam looked down at the two large bags of luggage. "Do I get my own room?"  
  
"Nope. This isn't exactly a mansion, so you have to room with one other person. Here, do you want help with your bags?"  
  
"Sure." He handed her the smaller one, and picked up the larger in both hands.  
  
"Follow me," Lee said, "I'll give you the grand tour of Casa Champlain."  
  
Cam looked as though he wasn't sure whether to smirk or smile, and ended up in a somewhat uncomfortable mix between the two. However, he followed quietly enough when Lee turned around and headed back up the stairs.  
  
"Daniele?" she yelled.  
  
"Yes, Lee?"  
  
"You might want to look at the living room with a vacuum cleaner, okay?"  
  
"Argh! My work is never done!"  
  
"Don't mind her," Lee quickly reassured Cam, "She's just been busy this morning."  
  
"...Right."  
  
"Okay! Up here are the dorm rooms, and the instructor's bedrooms. They're actually smaller than the dorms, so we don't have it all that bad," Lee said. "Guys room only with guys, and the other way around... You're allowed to have members of the opposite sex in your room, but the door can't be closed."  
  
Cam grinned. "That's really stupid."  
  
"Yeah, I know. It's not like there's going to be mad orgies or anything... Right. This is going to be your room," Lee said, knocking at one of the doors, one that had a poster with a large French flag splayed across its front. "Rafe? Are you in there?"  
  
"Come in," a male voice called.  
  
Lee juggled the bag from her left to her right hand, and opened the door with a bit of difficulty.  
  
X  
  
Whatever Cam had been expecting when his parents sent him to the Champlain Institute, this wasn't really it. Somehow, in the news, mutants had either seemed to be heroes, with wonderful powers, or villains, evildoers bent on the destruction of the human race... So far, the mutants he'd met seemed like normal teenagers. He didn't even know what sort of power his future roommate had.  
  
"Go on, introduce yourself," Lee whispered to him as she placed his bag on the spare bed. It had clothes all over it, along with some CD's.  
  
"Right, right," Cam said, glancing at the tall teenager flopped on the other bed. "I'm Cameron D'Amore, call me Cam."  
  
"Rafael Robuchon, please to meet you," said the guy Lee had addressed as Rafe.  
  
"Rafe, it's 'pleased to meet you,'" Lee corrected.  
  
"Yes, yes," Rafe agreed. "Pleased." He looked at the messy room, as though seeing it for the first time. "Here, let me help you with the clothes... Room's a little less clean than I thought when it was just me."  
  
I'll say, Cam thought to himself.  
  
"You can unpack later," Lee said, "I'm going to show you around the rest of the Institute."  
  
"Nice meeting you," Rafe's heavily accented voice called after them as they left.  
  
Cam smiled, just a bit. Perhaps this wasn't going to be as bad as he thought... Maybe he could forget the fact that his parents didn't want him? The fact that they were afraid of him? No, that wasn't something you could submerge so easily. With time, maybe... He shook his head, as if physical motion could clear his thoughts, and followed after the girl with the glasses.  
  
"We're not at full strength yet," she was saying, "So far it's me, Rafe, Jenna, and you. There are still four more spots, and we might be expanding, Mark says. We're never going to be as big as those showy -X-Men-. Damn Americans."  
  
"I'm American."  
  
"Yes, but you're an honorary Canadian, now."  
  
"Weird logic, but thanks, I think."  
  
"It's the highest compliment you can receive, believe me. Now. Downstairs... Here's the training room. It's mostly for martial-arts type stuff, we do the rest of our powers training out in the woods where no one can see us... That's part of Daniele's power. She can make a whole plot of land unnoticeable and unreachable. Things and people, too."  
  
"Heeeey. Now -that's- a cool power."  
  
"Yeah, but she's been practicing for a long time. None of us students are that good yet."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Lee continued down the hall, closing the door on the training room. "This is the kitchen, you can come here if you're hungry... They don't begrudge midnight snacks."  
  
"That's good to know," Cam grinned.  
  
"Indeed."  
  
X  
  
Nikki Luapay ran through the forest, ducking underneath the low-hanging branches and hopping over the undergrowth. The bow and quiver of arrows slung over her back were an unnoticed weight; and the exhilaration of the hunt gave her lungs the extra breath of air she needed to follow after the white-tailed stag. He leapt ahead, crashing frantically through the trees and bushes, but she was gaining on him. The large male deer was already wounded, one of her arrows protruded from his back.  
  
She chastised herself silently; normally, Nikki shot to kill, without causing any undue pain to the creature she hunted. Both Nikki and her grandfather lived on the meat they caught and whatever else they needed, Grandfather picked up from the small convenience store four miles down the mountain. Today, however, her aim had faltered and now, she could see the blood trail the frantic animal left. Abruptly, the noises stopped.  
  
She hurried forward, and found the stag lying on its side, attempting to stand. Blood seeped steadily from the arrow wound in its back. As always, she felt truly sorry for taking the life of such a beautiful creature... However, venison meat was quite tasty, and putting the animal to use, instead of stuffing it and pinning its head to a wall, was rather justified in her moral code.  
  
Taking out her hunting knife, she walked over to the stag, careful to avoid its thrashing forelimbs. Nikki was about to cut its throat when the sound of someone clapping caused her to whirl around in surprise. She knew the picture she must make; a tall girl with strands of sweaty dyed hair clinging to her forehead, and a very sharp upraised knife in one hand.  
  
"Bravo," said the woman, watching her.  
  
"Who are you?" Nikki asked.  
  
"Someone who's interested in what you have to offer."  
  
If she'd been on guard before, Nikki was suddenly even more restrained now. "And what would that be?"  
  
"I know your powers. I know what you can do."  
  
On the ground, the stag stopped struggling, closed its eyes, and died.  
  
Nikki stared back at the woman. She was a short, white-blonde person, with equally light green eyes, tilted upward and framed in pale lashes. She was not dressed for the woods, or for any other logical place that Nikki could think of. A padded black leather jacket and tight black leather pants, with knee high black leather boots - what else was the woman dressed for, except for a spy movie? "Who are you?" she repeated.  
  
"Me? You can call me Rán, for now, at least," the woman (Rán?) said. "Here. I'll help you carry Bambi, there, and then we can go and talk to your grandfather."  
  
Here, Nikki laughed in earnest. "You? Carry -that-? You must be out of your mind."  
  
Rán shrugged, and walked over to the deer, lifting it up easily with both hands. Nikki stood there and gaped at her. "You really are a mutant? You aren't just trying to trap me..."  
  
"Don't be silly," Rán snapped, and began walking off with the deer in her arms, wound aimed away from her body. "I want you to join my school for mutants. It's called the Champlain Institute, and it's in Canada."  
  
"I'm getting tired of repeating everything you say in questions. How about we don't talk, until we get back to the cabin."  
  
"If you want," said Rán.  
  
The walk back to the cabin was an awkward one. The woman didn't seem to be much of a talker in any event, and the several-hundred pound deer that the blonde held in her arms was not exactly a conversation prop, in any event. Nikki walked ahead of her into the interior, calling, "Grandfather? Are you there?"  
  
"Chumani?" he replied, using the old nickname that meant dew drops, "Han." Which meant yes.  
  
"Grandfather!" she repeated, and hugged him tightly when he came into the room. She had always felt a strong affection for the man who'd raised her as his own, and there was a bond, definitely a bond. As they hugged, Rán walked in behind her, flicking a drop of blood from one delicate hand.  
  
"Nikki? You know this woman?" the old man asked, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"Yes, Grandfather. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. She knows... about me."  
  
"Even your...?"  
  
"Yes, I do, Mr. Luapay," Rán said smoothly. "I'm an emissary, if you will, from the Champlain Institute. Although we're new and not very large, yet, we're recruiting talented children from across the globe. Your granddaughter - your Void - has, we feel, special abilities that merit her selection into the school."  
  
She talks like a lawyer, Nikki thought.  
  
"Would you let us accept her and teach her how to develop her mutation?"  
  
Grandfather smiled quietly, wrinkled face creasing even more in the expression. "I never make my Chumani do anything she does not want to. Nikki? How do you feel about this?"  
  
"I don't know, Grandfather," she said, "It just seems a little sudden. You know. Surprising. Shocking. I wasn't really ready for it..."  
  
"You can have a couple of weeks to think about it," Rán said, "I can stay for a bit to explain, but I have a teaching job I need to return to. We've our own jet, so I can fly out and pick you up should you decide to attend."  
  
"Well," Nikki said, glancing towards her Grandfather for approval, "There's no harm in listening, right?"  
  
"There never was."  
  
"Okay, then," Nikki said, "We'll hear what you've got to say."  
  
Rán smiled expansively, showing very white teeth. "I -knew- you'd see things our way."  
  
X  
  
Jenna Sintor groused to herself as she walked through the green-carpeted hallway. "'Coffee?'" she mocked, sighing gustily. "That Lee Nelson... Bah." She would work off her irritation in the safe haven of the garage, where it could be channeled to useful application. The school's high tech van had proved to be not as high tech as they thought, and rather than take it to the mechanic's to have the problems fixed (and have him exclaiming over some of the... defensive capabilities), Jenna had volunteered to look at the problem.  
  
She was not as comfortable with it as she was with the motorcycle that was almost her other self, but she was pretty familiar with most of the systems, enough so that she'd definitely be able to right what the original maker (someone the X-Men knew - trust them for shoddy construction) had started wrong.  
  
Jenna had changed into a pair of cut-off overalls, because Lee had soaked her favorite pair of work shorts by accident. Although she rolled her eyes again at the thought of the well-meaning troublemaker, Jenna smiled when she opened the door into the garage. It felt like home, in a way nowhere else in the Institute did. Every nook and cranny, she had already memorized.  
  
"All right, let's see what's wrong with you today..." she murmured, as she approached the van, rubbing her hands together to loosen her fingers. The van sat expectantly on its jacks, raised several inches off of the ground. Today she planned to look at the parts and systems located on the bottom... Jenna found the piece of metal attached to a set of wheels and lay backwards on it, staring at the ceiling. Propelling herself forward with her feet, she slid underneath the van and began to work.  
  
As she did so, one hand formed first into a flashlight so she could examine the problem. It took several minutes to "develop" the tool on her hand, even though a flashlight wasn't particularly complicated. She had to envision the thing in her head entirely... For some of the more complicated tools, Jenna had to use a tool belt, also slung around her waist.  
  
All cares melted away when she was fixing something in the garage, the tension from her shoulders and from her mind. Grinning like a little child in a toy store for the first time, Jenna set to work, diagnosing the problems and fixing them.  
  
X  
  
Rafe Robuchon was writing a letter home. "Chers mère et père," he began, chewing on the edge of the pencil, "Tout est bien. Il y a un nouvel étudiant nommé Cameron; il semble assez gentil. Enverriez-vous s'il vous plaît certains des champignons bons? Il n'en semble pas y avoir autour ici..."* He paused, chewing on the pen thoughtfully. Suddenly, the end burst in his mouth and he spit out ink, disgusted.  
  
Rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, Rafe stalked into the hallway bathroom, ready to brush out his teeth and get rid of the ink taste - he could hardly bear to have horrible food in his mouth for very long, let alone ink! Oh well. It had been a clumsy mistake; he'd live, to be sure.  
  
Looking at himself in the mirror, Rafe was fairly pleased with what he saw. While in no way an egotist, he knew that he was good-looking. Gray-green eyes, framed pleasantly by light wire-framed glasses, short brown hair and a clean looking face (except for the temporary ink spots on his lips, of course), in general, a face one could trust.  
  
And he was, of course, a person you could trust. Rafe rarely told lies, or at least tried not to whenever possible. He didn't smoke, only drank socially and never to gross excess, and was courteous to girls - they usually loved that. Rafe was, to all appearances, a clean-cut boy on the cusp of adulthood.  
  
Was that why they had approached him? Was that why the mysterious men had tried to recruit him for some sort of shadowy organization? He'd said no, of course, but for some reason, the slightly paranoid idea that the strange encounter was not yet finished had lodged itself in his head.  
  
Rafe spit blue-tinged water into the sink, and looked at himself in the mirror again. He was no little boy, to jump at fairy tales, was he? There was nothing to be afraid of. He was a mutant in the midst of mutants, learning to control his powers. Some day, he would become a master chef, like his parents before him. Nothing to worry about.  
  
And speaking of parents... Rafe spit again, and returned to his room to finish their letter, banishing all thoughts of strange men and mystery groups.  
  
  
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*The letter says, "Dear mother and father: All is well. There is a new student named Cameron, he seems nice enough. Would you send more of the good mushrooms? They don't seem to have them here..." I used Babelfish at www.altavista.com to translate it, so any faults are entirely theirs. Actually, all of Rafe's French will be created by Babelfish, unless someone actually knows French. Hee! :)  
  
If your character isn't in this chapter, they will be in it soon. Don't sweat it, okay? If you've got any ideas, put them in your reviews! I can't promise I'll use them, but I'd like to make this at least a bit interactive. Also, if you see a character you think yours would be paired up with, than go ahead and tell me. Any complaints about personalities, go ahead and tell me too... this is your fic as much as it is mine, and I want you guys to be happy with it. :) I'm trying not to be -too- long winded down here, although it's difficult. I think that's all. Hope you enjoyed! 


	2. 

Disclaimer!!! X-Men Evolution belongs to Marvel Comics and the Kids WB. I do not own it in any way shape or form, nor do I intend to make any money off of this thing. It's for everyone's enjoyment (at least I hope ;) and that's all. The characters belong to their respective creators, and are used with permission. Yay! Fun! Enjoy! Okay, let's see... if you are in the fic, please tell me if I'm portraying your character correctly, if there's any plot suggestions (can't guarantee I'll use them, but I'll consider everything), or any complaints or suggestions at all. Okay, that's all, I'm done, have fun. :)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"X-Games!" Lee said.  
  
"Iron Chef!" Rafe disagreed.  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
"X-Games!"  
  
"Iron Chef!"  
  
Cam looked over at Jenna somewhat bemusedly. "Is it always like this?" he asked.  
  
"Usually," said Jenna, and tried to take the remote away from Lee. There was a brief struggle, but in the end, Roller came out the victor, and Lee sulked against her corner of the couch. "How about we watch Sleepless in Seattle?" Jenna suggested, "It's on one of those movie channels."  
  
Both Rafe and Lee stopped arguing long enough to stare wordlessly at her, a look of pure disgust. "But..." said Lee, slowly, "That's a -chick- flick."  
  
"I kind of like Iron Chef," Cam piped up, "It's funny."  
  
Lee gave him a dirty look, but it was too late. "Fine, fine. Iron Chef. But only for today." She watched as Jenna turned to the Food Channel, and the four members of the Champlain Institute sprawled on the sofa, watching a rerun of the slightly campy Japanese show. The "secret ingredient" was unisex salmon, which elicited groans of disgust from everyone except Rafe.  
  
"Uh, how exactly is it unisex?" Lee wanted to know; eyes glued to the screen.  
  
"Shhhh," Rafe told her, waving a hand impatiently. "If it's interesting, you're going to be eating it for dinner one of these days."  
  
"Ewww!"  
  
Cam sighed - perhaps he hadn't known what he was getting into when he'd agreed to attend the Institute? Well - perhaps agreed wasn't the best choice of word. Still, he thought, maybe his parents should have checked to make sure the school wasn't populated entirely by psychotics? They were an interesting bunch of psychotics, to be sure...  
  
"Well? What d' you think, Cam?"  
  
"Me?"  
  
"Yes," Jenna said, "Would you eat unisex salmon if Rafe cooked it?"  
  
Cam thought for a moment and said, "Sure, why not?"  
  
"Because it's -gross-," Jenna insisted.  
  
"Is not!"  
  
"Is too!"  
  
"Is not!"  
  
"Is too!"  
  
"Is not!"  
  
"Is too!"  
  
"Is not!"  
  
"Is too!"  
  
"Enough!" Mark said, poking his head into the room. "Just watch TV without arguing, for once, can you?"  
  
"But that takes all the fun out of it," Lee whined.  
  
"Why do I do it?" Mark asked himself as he walked off, voice fading as his distance from the rec room grew, "Why do I do it?"  
  
"You're crazy," someone yelled back at him.  
  
"Why? Why?"  
  
Cam looked at his classmates, and smiled. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad after all?  
  
X  
  
Nikki Luapay fidgeted in the seat of the plane. The air had a stale quality and the sour smell of the fat man wedged into the seat on her other side didn't help at all. They were in express coach class, and Rán had explained that the Institute was on a tight budget, and their jet plane was currently being repaired. Nikki had replied that she understood, but the dinner of leathery chicken and rubber-textured refried beans was asking a little much.  
  
Rán returned from her latest foray to the bathroom. "Hello, Nikki."  
  
"Hello, Rán."  
  
"So... You are Sioux, are you not?"  
  
"I'm Lakota."  
  
"Isn't it the same thing?"  
  
"No," Nikki said, "Sioux is what the French and the Ojibwa call us. It's a name imposed by enemies. I'm Lakota. Teton, to be more specific."  
  
"Oh," Rán said, her green eyes glazed slightly. Nikki sighed; the woman obviously wasn't listening. The girl snuggled down into the hard-backed airplane seat, away from the fat man as much as possible, and winced. This certainly wasn't a very -glamorous- start to being a mutant, was it? Maybe she could create a void, just a little one, and make the man disappear...   
  
Somehow, though, Nikki was pretty sure that wouldn't go over well, either with Rán nor the airline authorities. Or the man's family, if he had it.  
  
She sighed again, and looked up at Rán. "How much longer is the flight?"  
  
"An hour or so. Be patient."  
  
Nikki said nothing, but opened a bag of airline peanuts, flicking the small, salty lumps across the plane. She giggled as she watched people turn around, trying to find the source of the missiles. "Nikki, stop that!" Rán said, sounding annoyed.  
  
"Sorry, Rán."  
  
X  
  
Daniele Moreno walked briskly through the slums of Edmonton, her slouched hat pulled into her face, hiding it from the view of the rest of the city. She wasn't using her powers to their full extent, just enough so that no one would bother her; she was just another faceless Canadian, instead of a tall, solidly built, and somewhat exotic looking mutant of Brazilian decent. While Edmonton was ethnically diverse enough, there was normally a certain quality about Daniele that compelled attention, amusing when thought of in contrast to her powers.  
  
She looked at the address on the crumpled piece of paper she carried in her pocket. There were two of them; Mark was going to San Francisco for the other one. Once she was finished in Edmonton, Daniele planned to hop onto a plane and travel to New York.  
  
The house was part of a section of a very run down row homes. The fronts were poster children for peeling paint and other forms of decay. Muttering to herself in Portuguese, she walked up the crumbling stairs to the front door. There was no need to knock, as the lock had long ago been broken from the doorframe.  
  
Daniele peered around carefully, and saw no one there. "Hello?" she called, knocking on the wall and letting her powers fade, "Is anyone home?" There was no answer, so she moved carefully across the filthy floor, picking her way over clothes strewn this way and that, old pizza boxes, and other bits and pieces of refuse.  
  
She walked to the stairs, going up them carefully, and equally careful not to touch the railing. It looked dusty and almost slimy in places, and Daniele did not want to guess what had left -those- stains there. "Anyone home?" she repeated, pausing.  
  
"Julia?" a somewhat sleepy voice called from one of the rooms, "I thought you were out with Dave."  
  
Daniele sighed. She knew she should have called first, but telephone service to this house and most of the others on the block had long since been removed. "It's not Julia, Aaliyah. My name is---"  
  
"Stay the fuck away from me!" the voice said, instantly more alert. A small form, clad in a huge fluffy bathrobe, appeared in the door, with a defensive posture and a slightly shrill voice scaling upwards, "I swear, I can burn you where you stand if you try anything!"  
  
Daniele held her hands up in the air, calmly. She wasn't worried about being "burnt where she stood," she could always slip away unnoticed. "I don't mean you any harm, girl."  
  
"Don't call me girl," the bath-robed figure snapped. "Who are you?"  
  
This was not going as she'd hoped it would. Daniele examined the girl more carefully. She was small, not exactly petite but nearing the description, with cobalt blue hair that would have been straight if sleep hadn't mussed it in wild directions. A somewhat bleary gold gaze looked out at her suspiciously. "I'm Daniele. Daniele Moreno, from the Champlain Institute."  
  
"The where?" the girl, Aaliyah, said, still sounding suspiciously. She was rubbing her hands together, almost as thought they itched.  
  
"We're a school - for young mutants."  
  
The bathrobe seemed to shrink in on itself. "How did you know?"  
  
She sighed, again. Spending the afternoon trying to convince a suspicious teenager to come to the school was not what she'd normally put down as her favorite type of day, but it looked as though she didn't have a choice. And she had less of a choice than anyone else could know... "We have our ways, Aaliyah. And you have to be tired of this - this -existence-. Living on the streets in a house falling down around your ears? Your only friends are people who sell themselves for money?"  
  
"Don't insult my friends!" Aaliyah snapped, although there was a hint of doubt in her voice.  
  
"Imagine a warm roof over your head. Food whenever you wanted it... Central air conditioning and heating..." Daniele said persuasively. "Not having to hide every minute of every day? That can't be a horrible deal, can it?"  
  
"I don't know..."  
  
"Come, at least look. You can always go back."  
  
A long, suspicious look through the odd golden eyes. "Okay. Fine. But if I don't like it, I'm gone, and you can't stop me."  
  
"Of course, Aaliyah," Daniele said, "You're free to leave any time you want."  
  
X  
  
No one saw the tall, almost frighteningly skinny boy in the back of the crowd. Whenever anyone tried to focus on him, he seemed to blend in with the rest of the people or to fade away completely, as though there was something more important for the eye to grip on to. One woman, in a stiff starched powder blue dress, saw out of the corner of her eye a lean skeleton with a thin disguise of flesh, whitish hair falling into shockingly red, slightly slanted eyes - and then it faded. There -was- someone there, she knew it - yes, there he was, wearing clothes that looked almost suited to a homeless person... And no, he was gone again. "Mortimer?" she asked her husband, tugging on his sleeve and accidentally catching a pinch of fat with it.  
  
"What?" he demanded, annoyed, rubbing his arm where she'd caught hold.  
  
"Do you see that boy in the back?"  
  
"What boy?" Mort said irritably. He was in a poor humor. It was drizzling and his hairspray was making his head into a sticky helmeted mess, and he hadn't been fond of Bea's aunt in life, anyway. He didn't like standing around paying respects and he didn't like that fact that Bea was asking stupid questions. "I don't see anyone."  
  
"He's there - was there, a minute ago," she said uncertainly. "I was sure I saw him."  
  
"The only ghost that'd be hanging around here is Edna," Mort said with relish.  
  
"Mortimer Levin!" she said, shocked. "Don't talk that way about Aunt Edna!"  
  
"Sorry, Bea," he said, and frowned at her. "Now, where's that boy you were talking about?"  
  
"I told you, he... disappeared."  
  
X  
  
Darien Tyrall wasn't sure exactly why he was standing the in the cemetery with these people he didn't know. They all seemed self-assured and healthy, well dressed, maybe wealthy, maybe not. They knew where they stood. He'd gotten on the bus at Times Square and let it take him further and further out of the city, until he found the graveyard and the people.  
  
He'd gotten off at the stop nearest the small, walked the mile or so to the gated expanse of green, and filed in behind the rest of the mourners. No one cried, it seemed as though they went through the motions of grief, putting on a show to convince themselves that they were decent people. The hypocrisy of it, along with the somewhat picturesque scene, dark sky, wilted grass, small black forms making their way towards a white grave.  
  
Watching the people and listening to the sharp staccato of the dirt falling on the coffin allowed him to forget his own problems, namely, that he was now without a home. There was no way he'd go back to social services, not a change. That seemed his only option, that, or living on the streets... Again, not a choice Darien liked to make. He shook his head, as though by motion he could clear away the unpleasant thoughts, and focused again on the burial.  
  
"Edna Grossman was a loving wife and mother, beloved by all..."  
  
From what he could see, it wasn't true. Not in the least. Darien continued watching the rabbi curiously, fascinated by the language of his prayers. It was at once guttural and lyrical, and-wait. There was a woman standing very close to him. Too close. Darien edged away from her, and she looked straight at him, something no one here had done, yet.  
  
Surprised, and a little worried, he attempted to make a quick escape, but she looked at him straight in the eye and said, "Why are you hiding, Darien?"  
  
He examined her before answering: tall, strong-looking black woman, equally strong Portuguese accent. "How can you see...?" he said, backing away. She didn't move forward, which reassured him enough so that he didn't bolt for the gates.  
  
"I do a very similar trick," she said, "That sort of thing doesn't work on me."  
  
"Oh. And my name?"  
  
"Sit with me a while, Darien, and I'll explain everything to you."  
  
X  
  
Darien Tyrall allowed himself to be herded onto the plane, although he couldn't really believe that this was happening. It was too fast, too unlike him, he didn't listen to people, didn't trust them. So why was he letting this Daniele Moreno Shepard him onto a plane to Canada? Maybe it was a lack of options; maybe it was the humor in her eyes, or the lines around her mouth that hinted at a loss?  
  
There were too many people here, and he resisted the urge to fade away from their sight. He was especially nervous because the girl who accompanied them, introduced only as Ali, who was... interesting. Blue haired and somewhat sharp-featured, she instantly began asking questions, wanting to know about him, about where they were going, exactly what was going to happen.  
  
He shrank protectively into his ski jacket, attempting to evade the barrage, but it was no use. She kept at it. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" she demanded. Darien was a little surprised that neither Ali nor Daniele had commented on his eyes or his hair, surprised and gratified.  
  
"No," he said, "I'm just not a loud person."  
  
"I want to know about you, if we're going to be living together, it makes sense, doesn't it? So where were you born?"  
  
Darien heaved a sigh and resigned himself to interrogation. "New York City."  
  
"What're your parents like? Mine kicked me out when they... You know. Found out about me."  
  
"I don't know my parents."  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, without really sounding sincere. Darien glanced at her covertly. She was dressed in mostly black, with bright red shoes as the only color in the outfit.  
  
"It's okay." Death was just another journey, wasn't it?  
  
"So I guess they roped you into coming, too, didn't they?"  
  
"I didn't have anywhere else to go."  
  
"Hey, me neither," Ali said with a slight smile. "Well, I had a house, but it was kind of falling apart. And I didn't own it."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"I just wish I could've said goodbye to my friends..." she said, volume of her voice dropping.  
  
Friends. Darien had never really thought about having friends, with the constant teasing it had never occurred to him that other children could possibly serve as companions, partners in crime. It didn't matter, anyway.  
  
"Well... Maybe we could be friends?" Ali said, "Since we're both starting over again?"  
  
Darien made a small sound; breath expelled from his mouth half in disgust, half in amusement. The tiny blast of air made the strands of hair hanging into his eyes move upward. "I suppose..." he said reluctantly.  
  
"Great!"  
  
Great.  
  
X  
  
"Sir?" the man said questioningly, his face cheesy white in the glare of the lights. They streamed from behind "Sir's" chair, making the man in question little more than a silhouette, insubstantial. The first man blinked. His eyes hurt from the dazzle of the bulb and he looked away, at the floor. He was acutely aware that it was a more subservient position, and thought sardonically to himself that it must have been at least one of the reasons for the setup, in the first place.  
  
"I said, you're moving too slowly."  
  
"I'm sorry, sir, but these things do take time--"  
  
"We don't have any fucking time, you idiot! Do you understand?"  
  
The first man narrowed his eyes at the floor, clenching his fists. "Yes, I understand, but--"  
  
"No buts."  
  
"You don't understand, sir!" he said desperately, "It's a delicate operation, we -need- more time--"  
  
"Time which we -do not have.- I don't think you're listening."  
  
No, sir, you're the one who isn't listening, he thought angrily. "Fine. Fine. We'll start working harder, longer hours."  
  
"Good," the silhouette said, "I hope that the next time we meet, you have better news for me. I don't think I even need to bring up the threats, do I?"  
  
"No, sir," he said bitterly, hating the silhouette and hating himself. God, he'd been an idiot. A blind idiot. But it was too late now... 


	3. 

Disclaimer!!! X-Men Evolution belongs to Marvel Comics and the Kids WB. I do not own it in any way shape or form, nor do I intend to make any money off of this thing. It's for everyone's enjoyment (at least I hope ;) and that's all. The characters belong to their respective creators, and are used with permission. Yay! Fun! Enjoy! Okay, let's see... if you are in the fic, please tell me if I'm portraying your character correctly, if there's any plot suggestions (can't guarantee I'll use them, but I'll consider everything), or any complaints or suggestions at all. Okay, that's all, I'm done, have fun. :) Also... if you're in this fic and you're reading, -please review-. I cannot stress this enough. There should be at least fifteen reviews so far, up to chapter two. I need your opinions and thoughts if you want me to continue this! n_n  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Joey yawned and flipped over onto his stomach, squinting away from the insistent beam of light that fell across the pillow. It was a Saturday. Normally, he would have just closed his eyes and gone back to sleep, but the window shade was twisted in a weird angle that admitted too much sun. With a sigh he rolled over again, this time dropping right onto the floor.  
  
"Shit!" the fifteen year old exclaimed, rubbing his stomach. He was lucky he hadn't hit his head on the nightstand...  
  
Oh well. Now that he was up he might as well get dressed. There was no way he would be able to fall back to sleep with a lump the size of an egg on his belly. Joey rummaged in his drawers, searching for something comfortable to wear on what looked like a warm day. He came up with an Abercrombie t-shirt and corduroys, and, even though his stomach was growling insistently, took enough time to carefully lace up his Doc Martins.  
  
He yawned uncontrollably while brushing his teeth, almost getting toothpaste on his shirt in the process. His reflexes were quick, as usual, and he froze the droplets of water and Crest in midair. Flicking them back into the sink, Joey grinned to himself. Having mutant powers was pretty cool sometimes. It certainly had its perks.  
  
His shoes always made large amounts of noise on the stairs, and his mother jokingly called him her little elephant. He clumped down the stairway now, hungry and fully intending to eat something the second he got into the kitchen. Unfortunately for Joey Jacobson, that was not what happened that morning.  
  
"Hey, Mom," he started to say, but stopped. His mother and father were in the kitchen, as usual, but there was another man sitting at the table with them, talking.  
  
The intruder looked rather tall, as best Joey could estimate from the sitting position, and had messy orange hair that poked in straggling wings over his ears. His face looked extremely young, and the close fitting black shirt and wider pants emphasized his chalky skin and carrot-orange hair. He was cute, but wasn't Joey's type. "Mom? Dad?" Joey asked uncertainly.  
  
They looked up at him, and his mother smiled, tremblingly, tears shining in her eyes. "Joey, we've wonderful news for you."  
  
"Really," he said, suspicious. The man in black stood up clumsily, scraping the chair against the floor and almost smacking his head against the low-hanging lamp.  
  
"Oops," he said sheepishly.  
  
"Mom? What's he doing here? Who is he?"  
  
"I'm Mark," the man said, smiling and holding out a hand. Joey shook cautiously. "And I've come here to ask your parents if you could attend a very special school."  
  
"I haven't done anything!" Joey told his parents, "You know me, I never get in trouble!"  
  
"This isn't a reform school, Joe," his father grinned, as well. "This man - Mark - he's a mutant, too. You'll learn how to use your abilities at this place."  
  
"And you'll be with other kids, just like you," his mother said.  
  
Mark rubbed his head idly, smoothing down his hair, absent grin in place on his features. It seemed a common expression. "Well, your parents approve. What d' you say, Joey?"  
  
"...Where is this school?" Everything seemed to be happening to fast.  
  
"Well," Mark said, hesitating a bit, "It's in Canada. Champlain, a city in Ontario."  
  
"-Ontario-?!" Joey said, voice emerging in a squeak. "Mom! Dad! You can't do this to me. What about Dustin? What about school? My friends?! You can't make me go!"  
  
"...Joey... Joey, baby, we don't -want- to send you away," Kimberly Jacobson said, "We love you, but we just want to do what's best for you." She got up, and went to hug him, but Joey wrenched away, hugging himself as he stared at them.  
  
"Mom, you're sending me 3,000 miles away! To a different -country-!"  
  
"We're sorry to uproot you like this, Joey," Mark said, "But the kids at the school are quite friendly. I think you'll like most of them."  
  
"I don't want to go! Dad! Talk some sense into her!"  
  
"I'm sorry, son," Koree said, "But we feel we have to do this. You can say goodbye to Dustin this afternoon, and you two can call each other, can't you?"  
  
Joey said nothing, just turned and left.  
  
"Uh... That went well," said Mark, shaking his head.  
  
X  
  
"You're leaving? You're not leaving! You can't be leaving," Dustin stammered, green eyes wide, but when he saw the look on his boyfriend's face, he sighed. "...You're leaving."  
  
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to," Joey said miserably. He hugged Dustin close to him, trying not to cry. Dustin shifted so they could hold each other more comfortably, and looked up.  
  
"How long will you be gone?"  
  
"...I don't know, Dus'," he said. "But it looks like it's going to at least four years."  
  
Dustin exhaled sharply. "Four -years-? Fuck."  
  
"I know."  
  
The green-eyed boy chewed at his lip for a long moment. "This isn't going to last, is it?"  
  
"Don't say that," Joey said, "You don't know that. We'll call each other..."  
  
"Come on, Joe, be realistic," Dustin said, and laughed. It was not a particularly amused sound. "You're going to be 3,000 miles away... There's lots of cute Canadian boys."  
  
"Cute Canadian boys aren't you, Dustin."  
  
"I know," he said, and smiled, just a little. "But how often do long distance relationships work? There'll be other guys. You'll notice them. I'll notice them..."  
  
"There can always be a first time."  
  
"Yeah." He leaned over and kissed Joey on the mouth, gently. "Just don't forget me, okay?"  
  
"I couldn't if I tried."  
  
"'Bye, Joey."  
  
"'Bye."  
  
X  
  
Cameron D'Amore woke up to the sound of a shelf loaded with books falling onto the ground. He sat up abruptly and said, "Oh, fuck." He squirmed out of bed, squinting and stumbling as he did, and went over to survey the damage. Some of his school textbooks now had bent pages, but that was the worst of it. The teen picked up the shelf and hung it from its hooks again, and glanced at the clock.  
  
"Fuck," he repeated, when he saw what time it was: 4:15, far earlier than he'd wanted to wake up. Lucky Rafe; the noise hadn't disturbed the French boy in the least. He was still sleeping peacefully, mouth open, snoring softly but steadily. Cam sighed. He might as well go downstairs and get something to eat, since he obviously wouldn't be able to fall asleep again.  
  
He wriggled his feet into his beat-up sneakers and went out the door, yawning and still a bit dazed. He didn't notice when several flowers in a vase wilted when he walked past them, or when a chair in the hallway suddenly had a leg shorter than the others. Wait - there were noises coming from the kitchen?  
  
"Haha! Take -that-!" a girl's voice yelped.  
  
"Evildoer!" another voice snarled sinisterly, "You will regret your trespasses! Prepare to die!"  
  
"No!" the first voice pleaded, "No, no, not the eggs, not the e-- oh."  
  
Cam paused. He wasn't sure if he wanted to go into the kitchen and find out what was going on - obviously, it was Lee and Jenna, but judging from splattering and more yelling, it was probably going to be very messy. His stomach grumbled. He supposed it was worth braving whatever the two girls had cooked up in order to find some food...  
  
He stepped into a -mess-. Lee Nelson had eggshell in her hair, and egg yolk was dripping slowly down her face. Jenna Sintor was covered in white, apparently Lee had upended the flour on her. There were puddles of milk on the floor, and Lee was holding a carrot like a sword, advancing on Jenna, who was defending herself with a loaf of French bread.  
  
"En guarde!" Lee said dramatically, brandishing the carrot.  
  
"You don't scare me with your paltry weapons!" Jenna retorted, inadvertently breaking the bread in half as a wild wave took it into the counter by accident.  
  
"I see you are disarmed," Lee said, and moved forward.  
  
"You are mistaken!" Jenna said, "A good warrior is -never- unarmed!" She snatched up a box of cereal and showered Lee with it, causing hundreds of pieces of Captain Crunch to stick wherever the egg was beginning to dry.  
  
"Varlet!" Lee cried.  
  
"Jesus!" he said, "What are you -doing-?"  
  
"We're having a food fight!" Lee said brightly.  
  
Jenna glanced at him and gestured with the bread. "Do you want to join in?"  
  
"Uh, no thanks. I'm just here for breakfast." He picked his way carefully across the mess, trying not to step in anything sticky. There were still several untouched boxes of cereal left, and he poured some Lucky Charms into a bowl, eating them dry since there was no milk left. "Can I ask why you're doing this?"  
  
"I dunno," Lee said cheerfully. "It was fun." Some of the cereal sticking to her face dropped onto the floor.  
  
Jenna brushed at her arm, sending a white cloud of flour expanding into the air. "And the adults are all gone, so we figured we could get it cleaned up before they got back..."  
  
"My kitchen!!" someone yelped, voice pained. Rafe stood in the doorway, looking shocked. "How - how could you!"  
  
"Er, sorry, Rafe," Lee said.  
  
"'Sorry'?!" the French boy demanded.  
  
"I -am- sorry," Lee said, unconvincingly.  
  
"You'd better clean all of this up!"  
  
"Don't worry," Jenna said, placating, "We'll clean up -everything-. It's not that big of a deal--"  
  
"C'est la cuisine! C'est nourriture! Il est ruiné! Bandits! Enfants mauvais!*" Cam attempted to smother a laugh - Rafe was so angry that he had lapsed into his native language, which, out of the three others in the room, only Lee understood.  
  
"I am -not- a child, Rafe," she corrected, "And we're sorry. Yelling isn't going to help us."  
  
"Rien ne peut vous aider! Vous êtes fou.**" With that last parting shot, he threw his arms up in the air and stalked out.  
  
"Wow," said Jenna, "I don't think I've ever seen him lose his temper."  
  
"We hurt his beloved kitchen," Lee said, also trying not to laugh, "I think that's enough to rouse even Rafe's rage."  
  
The sound of a door down the hallway made them all jump. Voices filtered into their hearing: Daniele's, saying, "You'll probably both have jet-lag, but you can take a nap after you eat a little something--" Two younger-sounding voices responded.  
  
Lee looked, wide-eyed, at Jenna and Cam. "Daniele's home already? We're -screwed-!"  
  
Cam, sitting at the table and eating his Lucky Charms, smiled pleasantly at her. "No, -you're- screwed. I'm just eating breakfast."  
  
X  
  
Ali wasn't sure what she was expecting, but this quiet gabled house wasn't it. It wasn't impressive, it didn't look like mutants would live there, and it wasn't large, either. Still, she supposed it was better than where she'd been living before. She wriggled the scaly black wings, hidden underneath her large coat. They itched, but Daniele hadn't seen them yet... Nor had Darien.  
  
The taciturn boy was fidgeting nervously next to her. He had no bags to carry, and his crimson eyes were half-lidded and almost sleepy looking, at odds with the rest of his expression as well as his motions. She half-smiled at him - although she was normally suspicious of people, something about the quiet boy was appealing. He certainly wasn't a phony, to be sure.  
  
Her stomach grumbled - more immediate concerns.  
  
"Daniele?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I'm really hungry."  
  
"Don't worry," Daniele said, opening a door, "This is the kiii... Oh, Deus," she said, and as Ali followed her, she saw the reason for the older woman's shock.  
  
Three teenagers were already in the white-tiled, very nicely sized room, and two of them were grinning rather stupidly at the teacher. The other one was eating cereal and pretending that the monstrous mess in the kitchen simply did not exist. "Daniele!" the one with glasses exclaimed without missing a beat, "Welcome home!" She bowed, flourishing a... carrot as she did.  
  
"What a pleasant surprise!" said the other girl, who was holding half of a French bread.  
  
"I wish I could say the same," growled Daniele, "Just -what- do you think you're doing?"  
  
"The food attacked us!" the one with glasses said, just as the other girl put her head down and said, "I'm sorry, we had a food fight..." and just as the boy said, "They were making a cake."  
  
They glared at each other, and the girl with glasses sniffed. "I liked my version better."  
  
Ali snickered. This looked as though it would shape up to an amusing morning.  
  
"Lee," Daniele said, addressing the one with glasses, "I thought I asked you to be responsible?"  
  
"Well..." Lee said, "I -tried-... It just didn't work very well."  
  
"I can -see- that! You're going to clean up everything in this room, and then you can clean up the rec room as well!"  
  
"Aww, but Dan-iele-..."  
  
"No buts. You should've thought about that before you destroyed the kitchen."  
  
"Yeah," said the other girl.  
  
"That punishment is for you, too, Jenna."  
  
The girl's face fell.  
  
"Both of you, go and clean yourselves up. And try not to step on the carpets!"  
  
"Hi," said the boy, to Darien and Ali, "I'm Cam."  
  
"I'm Ali," she said.  
  
Darien said nothing, of course, and Cam continued to look at him expectantly. Then he squinted. "Where'd he go? I didn't see him walk through the door..."  
  
Ali realized what Darien must have been doing. Daniele had told each of them about the other's powers, so she knew he must be faded - she just hoped he wasn't in the intangible portion, because she struck out with her arms, lightly, not enough to really -hurt- anyone - maybe just to jar the person in question back to reality. "Stop it, Darien," she said, "At least tell the poor kid your name." She caught hold of a large elbow-full of ski coat.  
  
"I don't want to. I'm going to go unpack," said a ghostly, disembodied voice. Cam jumped reflexively, and sighed, rubbing his eyes. Ali continued to try to grab hold of the reluctant boy, but he'd either ghosted completely or just walked out of the kitchen.  
  
She shrugged apologetically, although she wasn't really all that sorry. "Too bad. That was Darien, but... I'll talk to you later." Ali grabbed a donut from a plate in a fairly clean bit of the kitchen, and shrugged off her coat... She heard another sound like a small jump from the boy in the kitchen, but she didn't really care who saw the wings now - after all, all the students were mutants, and they'd been just itching to get free.  
  
X  
  
"Oh," said Lee, as she came down the stairs, tying her wet hair up in a short ponytail, "Hello, Rán."  
  
"You could stand to sound a bit more enthusiastic," the woman said dryly.  
  
"Hi, Rán!"  
  
"...I can do without the sarcasm. This is Nikki Luapay," she indicated the tall girl standing behind her. Lee smiled, and waved a greeting, which was returned. "I hope you'll make a better first impression on her than Daniele says you made on Ali and Darien. Show her upstairs?"  
  
"Hi. I'm Lee."  
  
"I'm Nikki. What did you -do-?"  
  
Lee looked at her, unsure whether to affect penitence or just to grin like she really wanted to. She decided on the latter. "Well... it's rather a long story. But needless to say, they do -not- approve of carrots as a substitute for fencing equipment."  
  
"...Right."  
  
"Don't worry about it, but don't use the kitchen for a couple hours, either."  
  
"Will do. So... How many kids are here?"  
  
"Everyone's supposed to be arriving today," Lee explained, "So we'll have eight when all's done."  
  
"That's not very many," Nikki said, surprised, "I'd been expecting something..."  
  
"...More like the Xavier Institute?"  
  
"Yeah, I guess so."  
  
"Well, we're not them," Lee said, "And we don't want to be."  
  
"Why not? It seems like a nice place."  
  
"Yeah, but would you want to live in a place run by a guy who can control and read your every thought? We can really trust our instructors."  
  
"I dunno," Nikki said, snickering, "That Rán..."  
  
"Oh, don't worry about her. She's the school joke... I don't know what she thinks she'd be better at doing, but it's all sour grapes. And here's your room, you'll be sharing with Ali. She just got here today, too."  
  
The girl examined her room curiously. "It's nice and large," she said, putting her suitcase down on the floor.  
  
"-Large-?" Lee squeaked, "What planet did -you- grow up on?"  
  
Nikki shucked her shoes and jumped onto the bed, bouncing up and down on it cheerfully. "Well," she said, sentence punctuated by bounces, "I lived with my Grandfather in a cabin. It had two rooms, and I slept in the one furthest from the door!"  
  
"Whoa," Lee said, "I... can't even imagine doing that."  
  
"It was great," Nikki said, and then, sadly, "I miss him already."  
  
"We all miss our families, if we've got them," Lee said, "You'll get used to it."  
  
"LEANNA NELSON! JENNA SINTOR!" Rán bellowed from downstairs, "COME DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!!"  
  
"I guess she found the kitchen!" Lee said impishly, and vanished out the door, leaving Nikki to unpack her bags and settle into her room.  
  
X  
  
Rafe stood on a chair, watching as Lee and Jenna scrubbed the floors, muttering curses as they went. "You missed a spot!" he commanded, pointing a delicate toe at what seemed to Jenna to be a shining example of cleanliness.  
  
"You're just trying to get back at us for ruining the kitchen!" she snapped, "It's perfectly clean!"  
  
"Look, girls," Rafe said gently, "Daniele said I could be in charge of the cleanup efforts. So I say it's not clean! Someone scrub it over again."  
  
"It wasn't this clean to -start- with," Lee muttered.  
  
"So this is a great opportunity to get it even cleaner. I want no floor unwaxed! No counter unscrubbed!"  
  
"No loony unmedicated," Lee whispered to Jenna, who sniggered.  
  
"I heard that!" Rafe retorted, "-You- can clean up the bits with the egg."  
  
Lee moaned and flopped onto the floor, pretending to have fainted. "No more! No more! I've had enough cleaning!" The kitchen did look infinitely better than it had when they started, but there were still puddles of sticky things on the counters and the floors, and Lee's ersatz sword was blocking the drainage in the sink.  
  
"I don't think that Daniele knows you're such a petty tyrant, Rafe," Jenna said.  
  
"She doesn't need to. And you don't need to talk while you're cleaning! Shine! I want to see some shine, there, ladies!"  
  
The two girls looked at each other and groaned. "At least it's preferable to a punishment by Rán, right?" Lee asked.  
  
"I don't know..." Jenna said, "He--"  
  
"Silence!!"  
  
X  
  
* It's the kitchen! It's food! It's ruined! Villains! Evil children!  
  
** Nothing can help you! You're crazy! 


	4. 

Disclaimer!!! X-Men Evolution belongs to Marvel Comics and the Kids WB. I do not own it in any way shape or form, nor do I intend to make any money off of this thing. It's for everyone's enjoyment (at least I hope ;) and that's all. The characters belong to their respective creators, and are used with permission. Yay! Fun! Enjoy! Okay, let's see... if you are in the fic, please tell me if I'm portraying your character correctly, if there's any plot suggestions (can't guarantee I'll use them, but I'll consider everything), or any complaints or suggestions at all. Okay, that's all, I'm done, have fun. :) Also... if you're in this fic and you're reading, -please review-. I cannot stress this enough. There should be at least fifteen reviews so far, up to chapter two. I need your opinions and thoughts if you want me to continue this! n_n Thank you, Ring Wraith -- I was afraid people might not realize there was a new story. ^_^  
However, I'm giving everyone a warning: if you haven't reviewed at all, the possibility that your character will die shoots up dramatically. ^_~ I'm not promising anything, but I'm just saying that if you haven't given me -any- feedback at all... be worried. -.-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Do we have to?" Rafe wanted to know.  
  
"Yes," said Lee, "It's part of the curriculum."  
  
"But I don't like it."  
  
"Rafe, the little kid act is -not- appealing."  
  
He wrinkled his nose at her, and finally sighed deeply. "I hate fighting."  
  
"I know you do, Rafe, but you need to learn."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Those of us with more non-combatative powers have to learn how to defend ourselves. Or would you rather let mutant haters tear you apart? I'm going to attack you. I want you to defend yourself."  
  
Rafe examined her seriously for a moment. Both of them were dressed in loose fitting sweats, and Lee had taken off her glasses and put in contacts. Her face looked quite different. She stared back at him for a long second and then kicked him in the stomach, knocking him over onto the ground despite his superior height. He sat there bemusedly, rubbing his stomach as he did so. "But... I don't want to fight you."  
  
"Why me?"  
  
"Well... I don't like to hit girls," he said. Lee sighed. Coming from any other person, that would sound incredibly sexist and just -wrong-. Rafe, however, was actually sincere, as odd as that sounded. She extended a hand to help him up, which he accepted, hopping to his feet and rubbing his stomach reflexively.  
  
"A warning, Rafe: you might not want to hit girls, but girls will have no qualms about hitting you." Lee took the opportunity to pull her hair back with a rubber band, ignoring the fact that it'd be very tangled within a short period of time.  
  
"It just seems wrong," he attempted to explain something which was nearly impossible to put into words. "My parents told me to treat women properly, and I do."  
  
"Rafe, Froissart died five hundred years ago. Chivalry is clearly dead. Now try to hit me, or I'll kick you in the face."  
  
"But you'd break my glasses!"  
  
"That's the -point-, Rafe, you -want- to break the other person's glasses. You fight because you want to hurt someone, or someone's trying to hurt you."  
  
"I don't like this..."  
  
"That's not the point. If you don't fucking try to hit me, I'll kick you in the face," she repeated.  
  
Sighing deeply, he wrapped his fingers into a ball and punched her in the stomach. Lee had been taking karate, since she was old enough for her parents to sign her up for a peewee sport, and it was long, long years of training that enabled her to keep a wince from her face. "Good," she squeaked, breath coming a bit short, "That's very good. Okay, let's spar."  
  
Across the room, Rán was having better luck with her trainees. Ali proved almost too eager, and the short blonde woman found herself holding the winged teen back more than once. "This is just practice," she said sternly, as a pair of golden eyes stared up at her unrepentantly, "Not a street brawl."  
  
"But that's how I know how to fight," Ali said innocently. "I can also use a gun, if you've got them."  
  
"I heard that," Mark's voice came from the hallway, "-No guns-."  
  
"What if I'm attacked by mutant haters?"  
  
"Then you get away however you can," Rán said. "Don't argue with me, girl!"  
  
"Don't call me girl!" Ali snapped, and tried to punch her in the chest. Rán's arm shot out faster than Ali could react, grabbing the girl by the arm. She gripped hard, fingers crunching down on the tendons of Ali's wrist. The girl's fist was forced open as she attempted to writhe away.  
  
"Ow! -You're hurting me!-"  
  
"Never," said Rán, with deceptively silky tones, all oil and venom, "Never ever hit me unless I want you to." She let go of Ali's wrist, face completely calm and placid.  
  
Rubbing her wrist sullenly, Ali nodded compliance.  
  
"Now," Rán said, more cheerfully (although for her, "cheerful" sounded like she was happily preparing for her enemy's funeral), "Why don't you find someone to spar with?"  
  
"Darien!" Ali said, as though seeing him for the first time. She snatched him by the arm before he could get away, dragging him over to a more secluded portion of the room, the better to practice. "Let's see what you've got."  
  
"...well... I've got a pair of sweats that are too large," the boy said after a moment's pause. Ali thought that perhaps she was imagining it, but there might have been the tiny ghost of a smile on Wraith's face. Whatever it had been was gone in a second.  
  
"No, no, I meant how you can fight."  
  
Darien gave her what the other students had already termed "the look" - it seemed as though he was staring right through her. "I just ghost away."  
  
"Haven't you heard that whole argument with Rafe and Lee? C'mon! Put 'em up!" she said playfully, bouncing up and down and waving her fists in front of him. It looked extremely silly. Unfortunately, Darien was rarely in the mood for "silly." He sighed, and tried to escape, but he was herded back into position by a passing Jenna.  
  
"If we have to fight, you do too," she said, and was promptly snatched away by Rán, under protest.  
  
Across the room, Lee was finding that her charge remained recalcitrant. "Rafe, I don't want to have to argue with you!"  
  
"But I don't want to!"  
  
"We know! You told me! Numerous times! Now," Lee said, reforming his fingers, "You want to keep your thumb on the -outside- of the first. If you've got it on the inside, you can break it..."  
  
"So that's why punches always hurt..."  
  
"Yeah," Lee said, "It tends to be kind of uncomfortable. Okay. Now that you've got your thumbs in place, punch straight - no, no, don't jerk your arm like that, you want a smooth motion. Smooth!"  
  
Rafe looked at her mournfully, letting the arm she wasn't holding onto flop limp at his sides. "This is revenge for kitchen cleaning, isn't it?"  
  
"Maybe," Lee said with a feral grin.  
  
"You don't like me. Nobody likes me."  
  
Lee was about to scream with frustration. She dropped his hand, despairing of getting the teen to punch correctly, and said, "I love you, Rafe, marry me?"  
  
"What?!"  
  
"You see? We like you. We really do. That was a joke, by the way."  
  
"...Phew. Good. I'm too young to marry."  
  
"Now PUNCH." His punch, when he attempted it again, was still a little too jerky for Lee's taste. She had him correct it and try again, and wasn't satisfied with that, either. Although she was a perfectionist in almost nothing, fighting was one thing Lee Nelson did well and watched for in the other students - she was Rán's assistant teacher, something that the blonde woman found infinitely amusing, since otherwise, Lee was the despair of teachers both in the Institute and at Casimir Pulaski High School.  
  
"I'll never get it right..."  
  
"You won't if you don't try!"  
  
"What's Mark's power, anyway?" Joey Jacobson asked Cam, as the two boys stood side by side, punching carefully at the skulls of human-sized dummies.  
  
"Uh, he stretches," said Cam, wringing his fist after it connected painfully with the support bar.  
  
"He what?"  
  
"He's, you know, flexible."  
  
"Cooool. The human rubber band man."  
  
"Like that one shot of Keanu Reeves in the Matrix - when he leans backwards and they're shooting? Mark can do tha-- Oh, shit!" Cam's dummy abruptly was missing a head. "Rán?"  
  
"What is it, Cameron?" The woman sounded tired, as though the effort of getting all those nasty little children doing the right thing at the right time was too much for her - and she made it sound like Cam was the worst offender of the group.  
  
"My dummy broke," he said sheepishly.  
  
"-Again-? What are you -doing- to those things?"  
  
"Nothing! It's my mutation, I swear!"  
  
She looked at him suspiciously, but went to the intercom and asked Mark to bring in another one from the storage room. "Fine. Fine, I'll replace it. But this is your -last one-," she said.  
  
"Okay, okay, I know."  
  
"Look, soccer!" Nikki giggled, as she kicked the dummy's head across the room. Unfortunately for her, it hit Rán in the back of the head while the woman was turned around and watching Rafe's progress. She turned around, rubbing what would soon be a large bump, and glared at the girl, who smiled cheerfully at her and yelled, "Goal!"  
  
"Stop that!!" Rán growled, "All of you! Stop playing around!"  
  
"I tried to tell 'em, Rán, but they just aren't as responsible as I am," Lee told the woman seriously.  
  
They all watched as Rán's face turned red. It purpled in swirls of color, little rosettes of anger that dotted her beautiful features. Her lips pressed together as though determined not to say a word. The blood directly around them drained away and she looked as though she were going to scream. They all stood in silence until the petite instructor stormed out of the room. The kids raised their eyebrows curiously at each other.  
  
Cam started to open his mouth, but Ali held up a hand, indicating silence. She pointed to the door; voices could be heard. It was Rán and Mark.  
  
"I -quit-!"  
  
"You can't quit, Rán, we're in this too deep. You can't pull out now."  
  
"Not out of it altogether! Just out of this stinking school! They must have fucking something useful for me to do!"  
  
"...Shh. They'll hear."  
  
"I don't care if the little brats hear!"  
  
"Be logical, please!"  
  
Their voices faded away, and the students looked at each other, perplexed.  
  
"I wonder what all that was about?" Joey asked.  
  
X  
  
Nighttime. The crickets outside kept Nikki awake, normally, her fairly acute hearing picking up the noises - of course, Ali's radio turned up loudly wasn't helping, either. "It's like I'm paranoid lookin' over my back!" it screamed in angst-ridden tones, "It's like a whirlwind inside of my head! It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within! It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin!"  
  
Nikki pulled her pillow over her head. "Ali?"  
  
"What?" Ali snapped, golden eyes and tiny fangs both looking quite sharp, in their different ways.  
  
"...D' you have to put the radio on so loud?"  
  
"I -like- Linkin Park."  
  
"They're almost pop stars!"  
  
"Oh, like -Creed- is any better," Ali sneered. "Scott Stapp has a Jesus complex."  
  
"Look, can you just turn it down so I can go to sleep?"  
  
"No."  
  
"TURN IT DOWN!" someone else yelled, from another room, and Ali sighed, turning the music down to a reasonable level.  
  
"Sheesh," she muttered, "It's not like it's that bad..."  
  
Nikki sighed - she missed her Grandfather, and the peaceful existence of their cabin. There was so much to get used to, here, and it was taking so long to do it. Small snores from across the room told her that Ali had already fallen asleep. Closing her eyes tightly, Nikki attempted to do the same... It was hard, and she was still sore from practicing. After a ten-minute break, in which they all assumed she was counting to a hundred, Rán had come back into the room, and worked them all until they were sore and wincing. The only one who'd seemed remotely cheerful after the punishing workout was Lee Nelson, who irritated everyone by bouncing around and asking when they could do it again.  
  
She had wanted to go to sleep a half an hour ago, but Ali's music had made it impossible to do so. A thought popped into Nikki's head, and she smiled wickedly: she had a nice plan for revenge, ready to carry out in the morning. Leaning over, she set her alarm clock's volume very low, and for 4:00. Tomorrow was a school day, so everyone would be waking up earlier.  
  
She smiled to herself as she drifted off to sleep. Ali wouldn't know what hit her.  
  
X  
  
"...beep beep... beep beep..." the alarm pinged quietly near Nikki's head, waking her, but not her roommate. The girl squirmed out from underneath the covers, plugging in her own CD player and putting a CD into it. She turned the volume knob up as far as it would go, fast-forwarded to a good part of the first song, and dragged the machine within arm's reach of Ali's bed. Catching her breath, Nikki counted to ten.  
  
At ten, she ripped off Ali's covers and hit 'play.' "BRUTA, CIEGA, SORDOMUDA," the CD boomed, "TORPE, TRASTE, TESTARUDA!! ES TODO LO QUE SIDO! POR TI ME HE CONVERTIDO!"  
  
"Wha?" Ali said, rolling out of bed, "Fire!"  
  
Doors slammed all over the Institute, and people yelled things like, "What's going on?" "What's that noise?" "It's coming from Ali and Nikki's room!"  
  
"NIKKI!!" Ali shrieked, "TURN THAT OFF!"  
  
Nikki obliged, grinning widely at her irate fellow student. "You don't like Shakira?" she asked, "But it's -good- music..."  
  
Rafe and Cam appeared in the doorway, both in boxers, and both looking rather dazed and confused. In fact, Rafe looked like he was still half asleep. "Là où est le feu?" he asked, and then blinked abruptly. "Êtes vous blesses?"  
  
"-I'm- fine," Nikki said cheerfully, "It's a beautiful morning!"  
  
"My fucking ears are bleeding!" Ali complained, rubbing the injured appendages.  
  
"Uh, if no one needs me, I'm going to try and go back to sleep," Cam said, yawning.  
  
"Je trop."  
  
"Well," Nikki said to Ali, "Don't you think that it's a beautiful morning?"  
  
"Fuck it," Ali grumbled, "I'm going back to bed."  
  
Nikki grinned again, quite pleased with the way her prank had worked - quite pleased indeed.   
  
X  
  
Darien was a little worried. In the city, you could lose yourself and no one would look for you. There were too many skinny fifteen year olds for a Good Samaritan to worry about; too many other lost causes for anyone to notice. Just shrink like a turtle inside your clothes, and they left you alone. At school it would be different. Teachers expected you to show up for class.  
  
Kids would want to talk.  
  
He didn't really have a choice. It was the Institute or foster homes. Or the streets, again. That's what he told himself, trying to convince himself to go.  
  
"Come on, Darien," Ali said, poking her head into the room, "We're going to be late!" He noticed that she had green eyes today - must be colored contacts. He wondered idly why he didn't do the same thing... and then he realized there wasn't much of a point. He'd get picked on anyway, hair, height, and weight, he stuck out.  
  
He also noticed that she was a lot friendlier to him than she was to the rest of the school. Odd. He really didn't think there was anything about his personality to merit that, but a friendly face... well... it was welcome sometimes? Painfully shy as he was, even Darien couldn't cut himself off from the human race completely. Instead, he nodded and let her lead him down to the front lobby, where the rest of the kids were waiting.  
  
Mark moved between them like a broody mother hen, making sure they had their lunches, checking to see that their clothes were appropriate, wishing them good luck on the first day of the school year. Darien was somewhat amused by the man's attitude, he was infinitely more motherly than the pale-headed Rán, who stood off to the side with her arms folded over her chest, scowling.  
  
"Mark, just let them go already," she ordered.  
  
"I'm just trying to make sure everything's fine," he said, sounding hurt.  
  
"They're not babies," she told him.  
  
The kids left while they argued and headed down to the bus stop. "Phew!" Jenna said, "I feel sorry for him, having to be with -her- all day."  
  
"Maybe she's nicer to him than she is to us," Nikki suggested.  
  
"I don't think 'nice' is an option, with her," Lee said, shaking her head.  
  
Darien didn't say anything, but he didn't have to fight to keep himself from disappearing, either...  
  
X  
  
They piled onto the bus, which was already quite crowded. Jenna Sintor searched frantically for a seat alone, but the brown bench-like contraptions, complete with sagging fake leather, were almost all filled. She dove for an empty space when she saw it, relieved - until Lee Nelson sat down next to her. "What are you doing?!" she hissed.  
  
"Uh, I'm sitting down?" Lee guessed.  
  
"Go find another seat!" Jenna snarled.  
  
Lee blinked at her, and settled into the chair more comfortably. "But they're all taken!"  
  
"Argh!"  
  
Across the aisle, Rafe had managed to find a seat with a blonde girl wearing a Hello Kitty tee. She smiled at him. "Hi!" She looked perky. Her hair was perky. Her voice was perky. "I'm Melanie. Are you new here?"  
  
"Oui," he told her, with a smile.  
  
"Cute -and- French! I'm in love!"  
  
"Oh, gross," Nikki snickered, from behind them, "Watch it, Lothario, I hear that drool doesn't come off of shoes."  
  
"I'm not--" Melanie said.  
  
"I'm terribly sorry," said Rafe. "I don't know her--"  
  
"Yes you do," Nikki said perversely, with a charming smile on her face, "We live together. Remember?"  
  
Although Joey found a seat next to a cute guy, the proximity of a nice smile and sharp cheekbones only reminded him of Dustin. He sighed, and turned his head away, staring out the window somewhat wistfully. Focus on the scenery, and you can forget... However, he was thwarted even in that attempt; the "scenery" consisted mostly of cityscape, now that they were out of the suburbs and heading towards their school.  
  
Cam ended up sitting next to a very large, scary looking gorilla in a camouflage shirt that said, "Now you can't see me." The other kid took up most of the seat, and he was squeezed against the wall of the bus as he attempted to gain some extra breathing space. Jesus! he thought, frustrated, watching Melanie trying to flirt and slightly envious of Rafe's situation.  
  
Some people had all the luck. 


	5. 

Disclaimer!!! X-Men Evolution belongs to Marvel Comics and the Kids WB. I do not own it in any way shape or form, nor do I intend to make any money off of this thing. It's for everyone's enjoyment (at least I hope ;) and that's all. The characters belong to their respective creators, and are used with permission. Yay! Fun! Enjoy! Okay, let's see... if you are in the fic, please tell me if I'm portraying your character correctly, if there's any plot suggestions (can't guarantee I'll use them, but I'll consider everything), or any complaints or suggestions at all. Okay, that's all, I'm done, have fun. :) Also... if you're in this fic and you're reading, -please review-. I cannot stress this enough. I need your opinions and thoughts if you want me to continue this! n_n   
However, I'm giving everyone a warning: if you haven't reviewed at all, the possibility that your character will die shoots up dramatically. ^_~ I'm not promising anything, but I'm just saying that if you haven't given me -any- feedback at all... be worried. -.- Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed -- I appreciate it muchly. :) Okay, here's the chapter...  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Lee was jostled to and fro as she attempted to get off of the bus. It's not like they should be so eager to go to school, she thought, hunching her shoulders forward to make herself less of a shoving target. It didn't work, and she glared at the football player with no neck who, laughing, shoved her aside and went off to join his friends. Lee concentrated for a second - hydrogen and oxygen, it was easy, almost subconscious - and grinned wickedly, to the dismayed shouts of the jock.  
  
"Ford, did you just -piss your pants-?" someone demanded, holding back snorts of laughter.  
  
"No, man! I swear! It's like something splashed me!"  
  
"Like what, dumbass? The ground's perfectly fuckin' dry."  
  
"I don't know! I just know I didn't do it!!"  
  
Lee giggled to herself as she went into the school. She knew that she should feel bad, since the kid probably hadn't -meant- to hurt her, but that laugh of his had annoyed her. It had fused together with the more sinister chuckles of people mocking her and-- And she knew, now, that if anyone ever picked on her again, she'd be able to put a stop to it - in other words, there'd be a rash of "accidents."  
  
She paused outside of Casimir Pulaski High School, examining it carefully. It was one of those ugly brick buildings that always seemed to be either schools or police stations; this one had the added bonus of several "avant guarde" metal statues in colors straight out of the seventies: puke green, piss yellow, and indescribable pea green.  
  
There was a small sign near the door that said, "Welcome to CPHS!! New student orientation in the auditorium!!"  
  
Now, the only problem would be actually -finding- the auditorium - despite its innate ugliness, CPHS was literally -huge-. It sprawled on for a quarter of mile and three stories, and probably had a basement as well. Her old school in Toronto had been half this size, and that was in a real city, too. Champlain was too goddamn rich for her liking.  
  
Someone tugged on her backpack, and she turned around, pushing the glasses further towards the bridge of her nose, reflexively. It was Rafe, and he looked at her with pleading eyes. "Help?"  
  
"With what?" Lee wanted to know, gesturing towards the school. She didn't want to be late to student orientation, she'd had nightmares about being sent to the Principal's office on her first day - Rán would kill her. They went inside, twirling in an intricate dance to avoid the crush of students yelling, screaming, and reacquainting themselves after a summer's break. The effect was something like being trapped inside the primate house at the zoo.  
  
"I'm not well with directions," Rafe explained, twisting to avoid a tiny, delicate wren of a girl, who was carrying a book bag almost half her size.  
  
"You're not 'good' with directions."  
  
"Yes," he agreed. "Do you know where the auditorium is?"  
  
"Your guess is as good as mine," Lee said, "But I suppose we can look for it. 'Scuse me--" she called, grabbing onto someone's arm.  
  
"What?" the student asked.  
  
"Uh, where's the auditorium?"  
  
"Just go straight down that hallway," she said, pointing.  
  
"Thanks. You know, you -could- have asked for directions?"  
  
He gave her one of those looks, the puppy-dog eye sort of look. "No, Rafe, not everyone hates you," she said, trying to avert a crisis - it was bad enough being in school for the first time without having a pity trip. It seemed to work, because he grinned at her, as though realizing what he was doing wrong. They walked together to the auditorium, which was easy to find, once you knew what direction to walk in.  
  
"Hey! There's all of the others," Rafe said, "Let's sit with them."  
  
X  
  
Nikki looked up just as Rafe and Lee arrived, a bit later than everyone else. They were lucky that the Institute kids took up almost the entire row, and there were just two seats left in the back (where they gravitated, naturally). The students moved in little groups, and weren't willing to break up their cliques for only two seats. Other unlucky late arrivals were forced to sit in the very front row, under the watchful eye of a short and stocky woman who looked as though she wore a poorly constructed wig.  
  
The woman, who introduced herself as Principal Parker, stared suspiciously at the students, as though expecting them to leap up and attack her. When she spoke, little bits of spittle flew from her mouth, onto the cringing faces of those unfortunates in the front. "Welcome to a new year at Casimir Pulaski," she said, with a voice as deep and booming as a drill sergeant's, "I hope you will enjoy your stay here... But put one toe out of line, -just one toe-, and I will personally skin you alive and make shoes from your sorry carcass. Thank you; now, I will hand the stand over to Vice Principal Harrison."  
  
"That woman," Cam whispered to Nikki, "Is crazy."  
  
"With a capital C," she agreed. "Watch out. Better not talk, you don't want to end up as a pair of shoes!"  
  
"What kind of shoes, I wonder?" a girl, one row up, whispered. "I've always wanted to be a part of Gucci."  
  
"Uh, uh, what Ms. Parker -m-m-eant- to s-say was that at Casimir Pulaski, you're a p-part of the C-C-CPHS f-family," Mr. Harrison, a small and spindly man, stuttered. He had a comb over that flopped about in the breeze from the overhead fan. As he continued speaking, the stutter only got worse - more noticeable, more pronounced, and, at the end, more embarrassing. "If y-you n-need any help, we'll b-be g-glad to offer ass-ass-ass--"  
  
The students giggled, and he looked mortified. "Stop that!" Nikki demanded, feeling sorry for the poor man, "He can't help it!"  
  
Lee, who had been snickering, shot her a slightly guilty look, and covered her mouth.  
  
"Ass-ass-assistance," Mr. Harrison finished, finally. "Here is a t-t-t-transparenceny of y-your h-h-h-h-h-homer-rooms. L-l-lunch is in th-three p-periods, a h-half hour each. W-we are h-h-handing out r-r-rule b-books f-for you t-t-to r-read. Th-thank y-you, y-you m-m-m-may g-g-go t-t-t-t-t-t-to c-class as s-s-s-s-s-s-soon as y-you f-find what h-h-h-h-h-h-h-homeroom n-number y-you are."  
  
Sweating heavily, he was lead off the stage by another teacher, who calmly put up the transparencies, one by one, letting the students scan their names. Soon, the auditorium was growing noisy as they sensed the end of the officialness to the meeting, talking to new friends and new enemies. "Hey, Joey, you're in the homeroom next to mine!" Nikki said, "What floor d' you think it's on?"  
  
Joey scanned the map on the back of his rulebook, and groaned. "Oh, god, we've got a hell of a walk - look at this. It's -all the way across the school.-"  
  
"There's no way we can get there in time! There's only four minutes passing!"  
  
Joey hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders, and looked at her with a pained expression on his face. "How fast can you run?"  
  
X  
  
Jenna Sintor walked slowly along the hallways of CPHS, going at a leisurely clip. She assumed that if she was late to class, today at least, the teachers would excuse her for being new. With this relative freedom, she was able to better examine the walls and inner workings of the place. Motivational posters were plastered on every wall, including one with a cute kitten holding onto a clothesline, that said, "Hang in there!!" Another said, "30 Years From Now, It Won't Matter What Jeans You Wore, Or What Your Hair Looked Like - What You LEARNED Will Matter!"  
  
It was rather sad, actually. Another poster featured a field of red tulips with one yellow one in the center. "You Are Unique!!" it claimed, in bubbly yellow letters. You have no idea, Jenna thought.  
  
Eventually, she found her homeroom, with a small sign that said, "10-7 Mr. Corey - 12th Grade English" and hesitated outside of it for a long moment. Did she really want to go in now? Who would notice if she just cut first period? After debating mentally for a short period of time, Jenna shrugged and went inside.  
  
All of the other students were seated already, and they looked up curiously as the door squeaked open. She looked back at them and waved; the teacher glared. "Sit down, please, Miss..."  
  
"Sintor," she told him.  
  
"We're delighted that you decided to join us. Please take a seat."  
  
"And I'm -delighted- to be here," she said.  
  
"Yes, well, we're -all- thrilled, then," the teacher said sarcastically, looking down the length of his thin nose in disgust. She imagined him eating pickle after pickle for lunch, each briny vegetable pinching his face just a little more, until the whole thing looked pressed and pug-like, soured and dried out and decaying.  
  
Why do people like that even bother teaching? Jenna thought; it's obvious he hates children. So why torture himself all day? She snickered softly. Maybe he's a masochist.  
  
"Miss Sintor."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Is something... amusing, Miss Sintor?"  
  
"No, Mr. Corey."  
  
"You may call me 'sir,' and this is thrice you have annoyed me."  
  
"Yes, sir. But you do get annoyed easily."  
  
"Silence!"  
  
"Don't bother," the girl sitting in back of her whispered, "It's Mr. Corey. Everyone knows he's a jerk - just nod and smile."  
  
"Thanks," Jenna whispered back.  
  
"No talking -please-," Mr. Corey said.  
  
Jenna nodded and smiled. He ignored her, and began to pick on a white kid with dreadlocks and a Bob Marley t-shirt.  
  
Finally the bell rang, and homeroom was dismissed. The girl who'd whispered to her smiled once they were outside of the room. "You're new, aren't you?" she asked, "I'm so sorry you had to experience Corey first thing you've gotten here, but not everything at CPHS is so horrible. I'm Lindsey," she said.  
  
Jenna examined the girl coolly, and decided that this student was probably not very popular. She had frizzy reddish hair and rather large front teeth, but a nice smile counteracted the horse-look. "Jenna Sintor."  
  
"So, what part of town d' you live in?" Lindsey asked, "I mean, if you don't want to say anything, I understand, but I can tell you all the fun places to hang out."  
  
None of us have really been 'hanging out,' she thought, It's either working on things at the Institute, or those horrible combat training classes. "Sure... I'm at the Champlain Institute." No one knew that they were mutants - at least, she didn't think anyone did - they were newer than Xavier's School, and they hadn't gone costume yet.  
  
"Oh, there's nothing much there," Lindsey said, shaking her head, "You'll have to take the subway into the city, I think."  
  
"That's not really a problem... They give us pocket money, there."  
  
"Great!" Lindsey said, "What do you have first period?"  
  
"Uh... Geometry."  
  
"So do I, it's supposed to be a good class. Do you need help finding the classroom?"  
  
Jenna wasn't sure whether to regret talking to the somewhat clingy student... Obviously, Lindsey meant well, but it was rather smothering. "I think I'm okay... I want to stop for a drink. Meet you there."  
  
"Okay," Lindsey said, and waved.  
  
Jenna sighed, expelling her breath through her teeth. She went over to the water fountain, now that most of the kids had cleared out of the hallway. Checking for security cameras, she found none. Concentrating for a second, she formed her hand into a small, simple tool, and pried the hole where the water came from a little wider - the next person to drink there would get a splash of water in their face. She grinned, feeling a little better, and went to class.  
  
X  
  
Rafe began walking to class by himself, feeling strangely drained. The day hadn't even started yet, but he was feeling rather hostile towards the school and the people in general. This is not like me, he thought, but was swallowed up in an engrossing wave of apathy. He tugged at the bottom of his shirt - it was chilly in the hallway.  
  
"Hi!!" someone chirped, at his elbow.  
  
"Ce qui?" he asked, surprise making him lapse into French. "I mean, what?"  
  
"Hi! How are you? It's me! Melanie! From the bus? Remember? We talked? Well, you talked and I listened, but I'm babbling! Aren't I babbling? My mom always yells at me but I can't seem to stop," the girl prattled. Her blonde hair bounced in a pigtail on either side of her head. He looked at her dispassionately, and she smiled, standing in a way so that her arms pushed her breasts upward, against the already tight Hello Kitty shirt.  
  
"Oh. Oh, yeah, hi," he said, after a pause.  
  
"What's wrong?" she wanted to know, frowning and pouting, "You were more cheerful this morning."  
  
Rafe sighed and tried to escape - he really, really didn't feel like talking to anyone right now. He wanted to go home, sit in his room, and hide his head under his pillow. Oh, and maybe doze off and fall asleep. That would be nice. Dealing with dangerously perky, underage girls was not high on his priority list. "Yes, I'm, uh, je suis malade - I'm not feeling well."  
  
"Oh! I'm sorry!!" Melanie gasped, "I'll, I'll leave you alone and, and, I hope you feel better!"  
  
"Thanks." Rafe made his escape, wondering at his sudden curtness - especially to a girl who meant no harm in the first place. He should have been polite, he really should have been - except at the moment, he was finding it difficult to care.  
  
X  
  
Barbara Michaels glanced down the attendance list for her class. Several names stuck out; all three were new students: Aaliyah Christianson, Cameron D'Amore, and Leanna Nelson. The administration had told her to keep an eye on those three, but she wasn't sure why. The only other information she'd been able to find was that they all lived in the Champlain Institute, which was to all appearances a boarding school.  
  
Reform school? No... She would have heard about -that- if it was the case. She eyed the three curiously as the other students filtered in; they were already seated. The first one, Aaliyah, looked like she would be trouble - or at least unhappy to be in school. The blue-haired teen sat with her arms folded over her chest, scowling at everyone. Cameron didn't seem as though he'd be a problem; the boy was unfolding his books and searching for a pencil - he looked rather shy, maybe a bit awkward. The other one...  
  
With her thick glasses and flyaway brown hair, the girl certainly didn't present a conventional image, but she wasn't as noticeable as Aaliyah. She exuded a feeling of boredom, chafing at the restrictions of the school... At the moment, Leanna Nelson was squirming around in her seat, trying to see everyone as they came in. Growing tired of that, she began ripping up her rulebook, making little paper footballs out of it, which were flicked at the back of Cameron's head.  
  
"Stop it!" he insisted. "Cut it out!"  
  
She merely smiled at him, all sweetness and innocence.  
  
Barbara groaned. Between her, Aaliyah, and the other troublemakers who populated the grade, she was going to have her hands full. Shuffling the papers in her hands, she greeted the now-seated classroom. "Good morning, class," she said with a smile, smoothing down her crisp white hair - Ben said it was even more beautiful now than it had ever been - he was one to talk; his hair was entirely gun-metal gray. Still, she had never dyed it, and she thought the students responded to her honesty in appearance.  
  
"Good morrrrrning, Mrs. Michaels," they droned.  
  
"I have the honor to teach you - or try to teach you - the wonderful subject of -history-." Groans, catcalls. "Shh. It can be a lot of fun to learn about the past, if you let it be - I want all of you to -try- this year, really start working. I know you'll enjoy yourselves more if you do." Every year, she gave some variant of the speech, but it never really worked. There were always one or two students who responded, and the rest just goofed off and ignored her.  
  
Sighing, she went to the blackboard to begin outlining the course syllabus. New students. There had been new students, last year, but she hadn't seen any of them, yet. There had been one boy, Jarek Fischer... An intelligent young man, but undirected, wild. She hoped that her new charges would be a bit more responsible - it was always easier that way.  
  
X  
  
Yawning, Rafe looked out the window, consumed by ennui, and... Wait a minute. What the hell was he thinking? That's not how he thought, not how he acted. With the mental equivalent of a blink, he shook off the odd feelings of chilly, emotionless boredom and quite rapidly felt more like himself. Ah. That was -better-. Still, it was quite strange - he'd put more thought into what happened after school was over.  
  
"Mr. Robuchon?" the English teacher asked, thin, pinched face scrunched in an expression of pure, malicious delight.  
  
"Uh, oui?"  
  
"Do you normally put this much effort into making a first impression?"  
  
"I... was not aware I was impressing anyone," Rafe said, and raised his eyebrows at the snickers he garnered from the other students.  
  
"Do not -hide- behind your accent," Mr. Corey snapped, "I know you speak English well enough to understand me."  
  
"English -is- my second language, sir," Rafe said, "You'll have to be patient with me."  
  
"Patience," said the teacher, "Is, unfortunately, a virtue I do not possess. You will adapt, or you will fail."  
  
Dieu, this man is insane, Rafe thought.  
  
"MR. ROBUCHON."  
  
"Yes, sir!"  
  
"-Are you paying attention?!-"  
  
"Yes, I am, but you haven't even started teaching yet," Rafe said, honestly confused.  
  
"That's enough out of you!" Mr. Corey snapped, "Detention! Two hours, after school!"  
  
Rafe groaned and put his head down on the desk - he just couldn't win.  
  
"Pick your head up!!"  
  
X  
  
Darien, in his own English class, wasn't having any luck, either. -His- teacher was a seemingly harmless woman, average sized and of average height, with plain, smooth brown hair and a sweet smile - but then she opened her mouth! The woman was a complete, virulent, man-hater. There was no other word for it. She'd introduced the class by saying, "Although the -administration- demands that I teach you -male- authors, I will be -focusing- on the more insightful works of the early and late feminists."  
  
Darien had realized, then, that he was in trouble.  
  
The minute he'd started to doze off, she'd jumped on him. "Darien!"  
  
He'd merely looked at her, wide-eyed, too concentrated on not ghosting out of the room to even respond. Why did she have to pick on him, like this? Everyone was staring at the weird kid with red eyes and white hair. He had to make sure he didn't fade - no one at the school knew he was a mutant, at least.  
  
"Are you even listening to me?" the woman demanded.  
  
He stared at her, just a single, skinny deer caught in the headlights.  
  
"That's -just- like a man," she snapped, "Marisa!"  
  
"Yes, Miss Kingston?"  
  
"That's -Ms.- Kingston, Marisa."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"Would you care to tell us everything you know about The Feminine Mystique?"  
  
It was turning out to be a -long- day...  
  
X  
  
Rafe sped towards the door the minute the bell rang. Mr. Corey had already assigned a paper to write, even though they hadn't really covered anything in class. That couldn't be normal - maybe there was something wrong with the man. Rafe fantasized momentarily about the teacher being dropped repeatedly on his head as a child, and sighed happily, at least, until he bumped into someone.  
  
"Hi!!"  
  
"Hi, Melanie..." he said as cheerfully as he could manage.  
  
"Can I walk you to your next class?"  
  
"Uh..."  
  
"Come on!! It'll be fun! I can talk to you!"  
  
Rafe winced. There was such a thing as being -nice- to girls, and then, there was Melanie. The chirpy, breathless voice was enough to drive anyone crazy, and the complete and total lack of an interesting personality, coupled with the first quality, was enough to make anyone want to vomit. "...Great," he said, though his patience plummeted towards the floor.  
  
By sheer chance, he managed to catch a glimpse of Lee Nelson, fighting a losing battle to make her way through the crowd. She was squeezed in between a group of people holding hands, and several others who were going very, very slowly.  
  
"...and it's really really fun to shop at Abercrombie!" Melanie chirped, "They have the -coolest- clothes!"  
  
He caught Lee's eye and mouthed, "HELP," at her, and smiled disarmingly at the blonde girl. "They do?"  
  
"Yes!!" Melanie said, grabbing hold of his arm, "Would you like to go shopping with me?!"  
  
"Um..."  
  
"Rafe!" Lee said, squirming as quickly as possible through the crush of students, and throwing her arms around him, elbowing Melanie out of the way as she did so.  
  
He blinked. That had -not- been what he was expecting. "Lee? Ce qui sont vous faisant*?"  
  
"Je me débarasse de votre ombre**," she said, "Oh, Rafe, first period was horrible! I missed you so much!"  
  
"Who's... that?" Melanie asked, letting go of his arm and looking at Lee suspiciously.  
  
"Who are -you-?" Lee demanded, "Rafe, is there someone you're not telling me about?" Her chin trembled, and she looked as though she was about to burst into tears.  
  
"No, no!" he said reassuringly, "This is just my friend Mela... Hey, she's gone!"  
  
Lee promptly detached herself and bowed, insamuch as that was possible, with all the people, and raised an eyebrow. "Sorry about that. No harm done, and she should stay away from you for a while. Better run - -I'm- going to be late!"  
  
"Uh, thanks," he said, meaning it sincerely. The bell rang and he winced - it looked as though -he- was going to be late, as well. I'm not cut out for this!  
  
X  
  
The lights were just as bright today, but the one standing in front of them was more assured. This figure, as far as could be told from the blinding silhouette, was a short, though voluptuous woman, holding herself in a rather seductive pose. "We are... making progress with the project," she said, voice husky, "But we don't want to repeat what happened last time."  
  
The man who had been addressed only as "sir" looked up at her, voice sympathetic. "I'm doing the best I can, but there's more powerful things pushing on me. I'm trying," he said, in quite a change of tone from the last time he'd talked to one of these people, "I am. I love you," he finished.  
  
"Do you?" the woman said, sounding amused. "I don't think you do."  
  
He stood abruptly and pulled her into his lap. "Sit down," he said, sounding amused, now, "And I'll show you."  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
*Lee? What are you doing?  
**I'm getting rid of your shadow. 


	6. 

Disclaimer!!! X-Men Evolution belongs to Marvel Comics and the Kids WB. I do not own it in any way shape or form, nor do I intend to make any money off of this thing. It's for everyone's enjoyment (at least I hope ;) and that's all. The characters belong to their respective creators, and are used with permission. Yay! Fun! Enjoy! Okay, let's see... if you are in the fic, please tell me if I'm portraying your character correctly, if there's any plot suggestions (can't guarantee I'll use them, but I'll consider everything), or any complaints or suggestions at all. Okay, that's all, I'm done, have fun. :) Also... if you're in this fic and you're reading, -please review-. I cannot stress this enough. I need your opinions and thoughts if you want me to continue this! n_n   
Jeez, guys, I'm sorry this is so late! I've had a hell of a time trying to find time to write, and then when I did, it was almost impossible to say what I wanted to. It took my mom not letting me on the computer to get me to drag out the typewriter and write...hee. Well, here it is. Enjoy!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Darien thought that lunchtime would never come. After the evil militant feminist, he had a fairly benign, but completely deaf old man attempting to teach a crowd of unruly teachers geometry. In self-defense, Darien had zoned out and fallen into a sleepy trance, staring out the window and watching a sparrow shoring up a nest on the window. It twittered softly, attending to its children with almost slavish care.  
  
"Psst," someone said, poking him in the back with a pencil.  
  
Darien didn't bother to turn around. He continued to stare out the window, ignoring the prods, which grew more and more insistent.  
  
"Hey," the student whispered, "Hey, freak."  
  
Now it was definitely the best thing to do, ignore it. Just ignore it, watch the birds in the window.  
  
"Hey, freak, why are you in this school? We've only got normal people here."  
  
Darien stared resolutely at the birds. The mother sparrow, sensing some unseen danger, took wing loudly, fluttering around her nest protectively.  
  
"Why bother coming here, freak? Are you trying to fit in? Little freak. How sad." The pencil jabbed him in the back again, this time with the point. He felt the lead snap against his ski jacket, and felt a small pang of fear mixed with anger.  
  
He pressed his lips together, trying his hardest to focus on something else, other than the persistent whispering and... "Mr. Sanders?" the teacher asked, finally noticing the disturbance.  
  
"Yes?" Darien's tormenter asked innocently.  
  
"Are you bothering Mr. Tyrall?"  
  
"No, Mr. Maxwell."  
  
"Mr. Tyrall, is he bothering you?"  
  
Darien couldn't answer, his mouth was frozen shut, in its thin line, compressed against any sort of emotion or words. The teacher looked at him expectantly for several seconds and, seeing that there was still no response, returned to the lesson, muttering something inaudible. The boy sitting behind Darien went back to whispering. "That's a good thing you shut your fucking mouth, freak, or I'd've killed you after school. We don't like freaks here."  
  
He hunched his shoulders forward, and looked down at his sheet of paper, which had various lines and segments drawn on it.  
  
The bell rang and the entire room swarmed in a mass exodus towards the door. Darien moved slowly while he packed up his books, and was able to get a decent look at Sanders. He was of average height but rather scrawny looking, like his chest stuck out while his stomach sank inwards. He wore a Marilyn Manson t-shirt, stringy pale brown hair; skin that looked as though someone had run a cheese grater over it repeatedly, and huge black pants that covered his feet.  
  
I get it, he thought to himself, you're the sort everyone picks on. I'm just easy prey.  
  
Surprisingly, Darien didn't feel bitter, or even extremely angry. He rather pitied Sanders. As soon as he was out in the hallway and heading for the cafeteria, he almost forgot about the incident. "Hey!" someone called, and for a moment, he thought it was cheese-face-boy, but no - feminine voice, though it was certainly loud and strident. "Darien! Wait up!"  
  
Ali. He nodded at her, relaxing a bit. He hadn't realized that his muscles had been tensed. "...Hi," he said hesitantly.  
  
"Ugh, I hate school already," she grumbled, "Too bad you aren't in any of my classes." She was a junior, he remembered. He couldn't have agreed more with the first statement, however. He missed the freedom of being able to go where he wanted when he wanted, the freedom to escape from a problem if it presented itself... The freedom to starve on the street? Death was fascinating, but at the moment, he preferred to hold onto life as tightly as possible.  
  
"Come on, I'll walk with you," she said, and smiled.  
  
X  
  
Cam D'Amore stood in line with the rest of the kids, waiting for his turn to buy a lunch. Rooting around in his pocket for money, he shuffled up in the line of students. They moved automatically, shoved like sardines in the too-small cafeteria. The lunch ladies were a surly looking bunch, and he sighed - was there no staff member in this school who was -normal-?! One woman, who must have been about four feet tall and just as wide, gave him a sour look. She had a hair net tightly binding the few wisps of dark hair to her head, which could have been a reason for her angry face.  
  
"Whaddaya want?" she growled, in a surprisingly deep voice. In fact, her voice was deeper than Cam's was. He decided not to make any sudden moves - he did -not- want this ScaryWoman mad at him.  
  
"Pizza, please," he said, not wanting to tempt fate by buying one of the "home cooked" meals that CPHS offered. The pizza came from Papa John's and was most likely safe to eat. As the woman put the plate down on his tray, Cam eyed the food some of the other students had on their plates - the unlucky ones who didn't have enough money for pizza.  
  
It was a mishmash of green and orange, a revolting color combination. He recoiled as the smell wafted to his nose, a piquant bouquet of garbage and vomit and some sort of sweet rancid odor that he couldn't identify... "I think it's carrots and string beans," the girl next to him said mournfully, "But that's only a guess."  
  
"Urgh," Cam said.  
  
"Yeah," the kid said sadly, "But at least you don't have to eat it."  
  
"True," Cam agreed. He had one extra dollar left, not enough for pizza, but... "Here. Buy yourself some potato chips or something."  
  
"Hey, thanks!" she said, smiling. "I forgot my lunch money -once- and look what happens - this is great." She pushed the tray back at the lunch lady. "Don't worry, I'll definitely pay you back tomorrow."  
  
Cam shrugged. "Don't worry about it. They give us pocket money at the Institute."  
  
"Oh, you're one of those new kids," the girl said, glancing at him more curiously, "I'm Blaire." She winced slightly as she said her name, but brightened. "So, what's your name?"  
  
"I'm Cam," he said.  
  
"Ah - there's my friends," she said, nodding her head at a group of kids starting to sit down at one of the tables, "Do you want to sit with us?"  
  
He thought about it - sit with kids he knew, or introduce himself to a bunch of people who looked rather preppy... Nah. "I think I'm going to sit with the rest of the kids from the Institute - you know, birds of a feather, stick together?" he said dryly.  
  
"That's okay," Blaire said, "But if you change your mind, I'm sure we can find you a seat!"  
  
"...Thanks." Can kicked himself at his sudden attack of shyness, but headed over to where the familiar faces smiled. Coward, a treacherous voice whispered. He winced and sat down next to Darien and Rafe.  
  
"Hey, Cam, who was that girl you were talking to?" Joey asked, raising his eyebrows with a grin.  
  
"She said her name was Blaire."  
  
Rafe grinned and nudged Cam in the ribs. "It seems as though you find one normal person in this school."  
  
"Yeah," he said, after a moment, not even bothering to correct the French boy's grammar mistake, and grinned, "Yeah, it does."  
  
X  
  
"Pay -attention-, people!" Rán demanded, watching the students critically. They fidgeted uncomfortably in their casual uniforms, close-fitting gray t-shirts and black pants that allowed them to move easily, and black sneakers. No fancy spandex for us, Joey thought, with relief. There's no way in hell I'm wearing spandex. Luckily, the leaders of the Institute had no such plans in mind, "Especially not when you're -teenagers-," Mark had said cheerfully.  
  
He turned a casual eye on Jenna Sintor, who was standing at attention, in a stiff, almost military posture. Her eyes were focused on Rán, watching her every move and ready to respond to orders. Then he looked at the rest of the Institute kids, and had to bite back snickers at what he saw. Nikki was off to the side, examining an interesting flower; Cam was trying to explain to Rafe something dealing with physics (not very successfully, from his frustrated voice), and Darien looked ghostly, half-there. Lee Nelson was listening to her headphones and dancing spastically, and Ali stood near Darien, attempting to get him solid again.  
  
Joey could see why Rán was so upset. The woman simply was not cut out to deal with children, and she waved her arms frantically, trying to get their respective gazes focused upon her. "Right," she said, "Roll call. To get into practice, I want you to answer with your codename."  
  
"This is ridiculous," Ali muttered, "What does she think we are, superheroes?"  
  
"At least you got to pick -your- name," Lee whispered back.  
  
"Roller!" Jenna said, giving them a warning look.  
  
"Variant," Rafe said, attempting to hide a smirk.  
  
"…Wraith…" Darien's voice could barely be heard.  
  
Joey said, "Tick-tock."  
  
"Void, ready and at attention, Marm!" Nikki said smartly.  
  
"Demon. I'm Demon," Ali said, rolling her eyes. "But this is -so- childish." She folded her arms over her chest and waited.  
  
"Poltergeist," Cam said. He wasn't sure exactly if the name was 'superhero' worthy, but it certainly fit him. As if to prove his point, a perfectly sound tree branch crackled and fell onto the ground with a loud crash. Everyone jumped, and someone laughed. He sighed.  
  
"Torrent," Lee said, glaring at the other students, "And if anyone makes a 'Bring it On' comment, I will personally make sure their death is slow and painful."  
  
"That was 'Torrance,' I think," Nikki said helpfully.  
  
"You know what I meant."  
  
"This isn't a boot camp," Rán continued, "You shouldn't see me as a drill sergeant. I am here to train you, help you recognize your full potential--"  
  
"Maybe she shouldn't act like one, then," Ali muttered.  
  
"Shh," Rafe cautioned, "She doesn't look very cheerful."  
  
"Would you two be quiet?" Jenna asked.  
  
"Quiet!" Ran snapped, and counted the number of times she'd been forced to say it, but lost count somewhere around fifty-three. -Kids-. "This is not a joke. The control you have over yourself could be the difference between life and death. I will help you develop your abilities to the fullest. Now, I want you to try as hard as you can to focus your power on something - I will tell you when to stop."  
  
Joey snorted softly - he had an idea that amused him quite strongly. In the back of his head, the part of his brain that controlled his mutation stirred. He was never sure exactly how it worked, only that things -stopped-. Time stopped. A slightly impish grin on his face, he focused on Rán and stopped her, mid-bark.  
  
The woman was a comical sight, mouth open, brows drawn down, hand raised. The other students giggled nervously but edged away from her. The strain of keeping her frozen was starting to knot his intestines, and Joey released his hold on her timeline, feeling a little dizzy. Instantly, she moved back into animation, snarling at him. "You! Jacobson! It was -you-, wasn't it? If you -ever- pull a stunt like that again…"  
  
"Yes ma'am."  
  
"Sit over there by that tree. You're out of the practice. The rest of you - let this be an example! Now - try it -without- using your powers on me."  
  
X  
  
Rafe attempted to find a suitable focus… not Rán. That would be tantamount to committing suicide. He wouldn't try anything on the other Institute students… that just would not be the right thing to do. With a smile, he noticed a small puddle of water, and sat down on the wet grass next to it. Concentrate. He drew at the heat he felt inside it, drawing it up towards him.  
  
That was good, warmth wanted to rise up, move up towards the sky. It floated towards him as he held his hand out, a tingling heat spreading through his fingers. There was a gradual crackling noise, and when he looked down, the puddle had become a smooth pool of ice. He could see his face reflected in it, and looked to Rán for approval. He was surprised and a little hurt when she frowned and shook her head.  
  
Lee was nearby, still listening to her headphones. She hadn't heard any of the pep talk, and looked startled and angry when Rán ripped them away from her head. "Hey! Don't do that! You could ruin my Social Distortion CD!" Grumbling to herself, Lee glared at Rán while muttering at Rafe, "I don't know how she expects me to do anything now - I'm too fucking annoyed."  
  
Ali, without any sort of delicate precision, was setting patches of grass on fire, beaming as they erupted into plumes of golden-red. Despite the aesthetics of the show, her mind was not on it - Rafe could tell she was thinking of something else. The lackluster effort caught Rán's attention. "If you are going to daydream, you might as well go back to that slum in Edmonton. Nikki - no! Stop!" The unfortunate girl had opened her portal near the spot where Rán had rested her favorite leather jacket. The miniature black hole had sucked the garment through to whatever dimension lost clothing filled.  
  
Lee, speaking sardonically, exclaimed, "It must be keeping all of my lost socks company." A hoarse chuckle, sounding a bit surprised at itself, could be heard from what was apparently thin air. Darien, watching the scene invisibly, was rather shocked to find himself laughing at the absurdity of the statement and the whole situation.  
  
Cam stood off to the side, feeling rather awkward. Even if they weren't going about it correctly, at least the others were getting results... He felt rather useless, out of place, and rather stupid. Sighting, Cam turned away from the group. "Hey!" someone said brightly.  
  
"Eh?"  
  
"Don't feel bad," Nikki said with a smile, "You'll get the hang of it eventually!"  
  
"Uh, thanks..." Cam wasn't sure how to tell her that he was almost as frightened of 'getting the hang of it' as he was of spending the rest of his life as The Human Jinx.  
  
Jenna Sintor, meanwhile, was ignoring the rest of the students' antics. She looked at her arms, at her legs, she licked her lips. The hardest thing... she decided that, even if it left her sick and dizzy, she'd give it a try. Gradually, almost bone by bone, she exchanged calcium with metal, blood with gasoline, skin with a thin coating of steel and paint, intestines with gears and pistons, human shape with that of a machine, an old motorcycle.  
  
Some days she could manage the transformation without any side effects, but sometimes it left her with the taste of gasoline in her mouth, or a horrid feeling in her bones, as though they were stretching the wrong way. In the strange, almost dreamy awareness that came with her new form, she could hear the gasps of the students and could see the thin smile of Rán's face.  
  
"Good," she said, and then turned on the rest. "None of you were trying - that is -not- good enough! If you are going to practice like -this-, you are going to be killed the moment a gang of mutant haters gets their hands on you. Try again, and I want to see some -effort- this time."  
  
X  
  
"Mark?" Cam said.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Why is Rán always in such a nasty mood?"  
  
Mark smiled dryly. "She's a really nice person... once you... look past the heinous bitchiness..."  
  
"Sure," Cam said doubtfully. "Seriously, though, I think she hates us. She was looking at Nikki like she wanted to kill her."  
  
"I could say, 'never judge a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes,'" Mark said, "But that's a cliché and Rán's shoes are pinchy. So... Just remember that you don't know her, really, and she's been through a lot. I'm not making excuses, but she really is a good person at heart, I think. Does that answer your question?"  
  
"Sort of," Cam said, "Thank you."  
  
"Any time, kid."  
  
X  
  
Bed springs squeaked.  
  
"Does it ever get to you sometimes?"  
  
"Does what?"  
  
"Everything. The injustice of the world. Lies. Unfairness. Evil."  
  
"No."  
  
"You're a liar. What's your fucking secret?"  
  
"I dunno. I just don't think about it."  
  
"When I was little, I wanted to be a superhero."  
  
"That's it. No more espresso chip ice cream for you. It makes you glooomy."  
  
"That is not going to distract me."  
  
"What if I kiss you right here...?"  
  
"Cheater."  
  
"-Winner.-"  
  
"Bastard."  
  
"Maybe."  
  
Bed springs squeaked.  
  
X  
  
Darien woke up at two oh seven in the morning, and looked around the room reflexively. Joey was asleep, small noises popping from his nose and mouth, and there were no other people around. He slipped into his anorak and went into the hallway, not sure exactly where he was going. The Institute wasn't large, had no secret passages or interesting nooks. The grounds were nice, though. He went out onto the porch and was surprised to find someone already there.  
  
It was Ali, perched on the porch rail, legs tucked up to her chest, scaly black clawed wings unfurled behind her, a gargoyle motionless and, if not serene, certainly detached. She glanced over her shoulder when he walked onto the porch, and started to talk, not really expecting answers. "Can you believe her, Darien? Talking like it's the end of the world if she sends me back home where no one talked like -she- does and everyone understood who I really am... We're just little performing machines to her and I hate it! How dare she treat us like that?"  
  
"If it's so unfair... say something."  
  
Ali blinked furious eyes at him. "Like that would help," she snorted, "She'd probably twist my arm off. There's something not right about that woman."  
  
Darien sat down on the wicker chair next to the door and watched her silently, and she continued to talk. "I can't quite put my finger on it... It's something in the way she watches us when she thinks we're not looking."  
  
He looked at the floor. She glanced back at the horizon, at the moon and stars. "I don't know. I guess I'm just being stupid," she said, and gave a sharp smile.  
  
"You're not."  
  
"Thanks," she said. "It's so strange up here... you can see the stars." Ali snorted, "And it makes me philosophize when I don't want to."  
  
X  
  
Nikki rolled over in her bed, tangled in the sheets, and coughed. She rolled over again and fell onto the floor with a thump, eyes snapping open, and then they opened wider. For the moonlight streaming through the window was obstructed by a dark shape, a very -large- dark shape which wasn't alone. A second one stood next to it, over its shoulder something that looked frighteningly like a gun.  
  
Where the hell was Ali? Her roommate's bed was empty. She opened her mouth to scream, at the same time reaching out with her mind to create a black hole, sucking the intruders into it. However, before sound could emerge, and before she could concentrate long enough to form a void, the second figure clapped a hand over her mouth, and an arm around her waist.  
  
Nikki struggled wildly, kicking out in any direction. She managed to bit the man holding her, tasting coppery blood in her mouth, but the other one jabbed a hypodermic syringe into her arm. Nikki continued to fight but her limbs did not seem to be responding correctly. She felt leaden, heavy, and her eyes drooped inexorably shut. It's a good thing he's holding on to me, she thought dazedly; I'm going to fall.  
  
And then everything went black.  
  
X  
  
"Was that really wise, sir?"  
  
"The project needs to move forward."  
  
"I know, but this early--?"  
  
"You're worried about the backlash, aren't you?"  
  
"…Of course. I'm not stupid."  
  
"It will be fine. We just want to run some... preliminary tests. That sort of thing. Nothing too involved this time."  
  
"If you say so, sir." 


	7. 

Author's note! I'm really sorry this chapter is so short, but I wanted to post it before I leave... I'm going to be gone for three weeks, and I didn't think it was fair not to post what I've got when it's been such a long time between chapters... in any event, you know the procedure. The characters belong to you, X-Men belongs to Marvel and the WB, read and review, give me your opinions, etc. Again, I apologize, this is only a little more than four typed pages. :P  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Nikki rolled over in her bed, tangled in the sheets, and coughed. She rolled over again and fell onto the floor with a thump, eyes snapping open, and then they opened wider.  
  
Something wasn't right. She had a strange sense of déjà vu. And she felt rather sick, come to think of it. She stood up carefully, head aching, and tottered on her feet until her balance returned. Something was wrong. Or missing. Nikki peered around the room blearily, but saw only Ali, still dozing on the bed. She looked at the clock, which read 9:58 AM. It was Saturday.  
  
"Ali?" she asked, voice sounding rather hoarse.  
  
"What?" inquired a muffled voice from the bundle of blankets.  
  
"Did anything... strange... happen last night?"  
  
"Mmmf," Ali muttered.  
  
"I'm serious," Nikki said, puzzled frown touching her forehead.  
  
"Did what happen?" Ali asked, poking her head from beneath the covers, bleary looking eyes focusing gradually as she began to wake.  
  
"Anything strange," Nikki said, persistence stemming from the slight panic she now felt.  
  
"I dunno," Ali said, "I didn't get in until two..."  
  
"Oh," Nikki said, "...Maybe I was dreaming..."  
  
"Yeah, you woke me up for that?" Ali demanded, "It's not even twelve o'clock. And it's -Saturday-!"  
  
Nikki said, "...Sorry..." and stumbled into the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror as she brushed her teeth. "Ouch!" she exclaimed, as a lift of her arm in a certain direction pulled at what seemed to be a newly healing scab. She twisted her arm around so that she could see her left shoulder. There was a tiny puncture wound there, almost like a mosquito had bitten her, and she'd scratched the scab away.  
  
That's odd, she thought, before Jenna pounded on the door.  
  
"Nikki! Are you almost done?"  
  
"Yeah, Jenna, one second--" And she forgot about déjà vu, strange wounds she hadn't remembered receiving, and her sense of uneasiness.  
  
Nikki went down to eat breakfast.  
  
X  
  
Joey's boots clumped loudly on the stairs as he went down into the kitchen. "Good morning, everyone," he said cheerfully.  
  
"You're awfully chirpy today," Ali grumbled at him.  
  
"-I- am going to be social," he informed her.  
  
"Social?" Ali asked, "What ever could that mean?"  
  
"It means that the school's having a club fair," said Joey, "I'm going to see what they've got."  
  
"Clubs?" Ali snorted, "That's stupid."  
  
"Not really," Joey said, "I met Dustin at one of the school clubs."  
  
"Who's Dustin?" Nikki asked curiously, entering the kitchen.  
  
"My boyfriend."  
  
"And... you're from California?" Nikki asked.  
  
"Yep."  
  
"Poor thing," she said sympathetically, "You must miss him."  
  
"Yeah..." said Joey, looking at the floor, "Yeah, I do." He was surprised at the sudden, rather guilty feeling that enveloped him: he had forgotten to call Dustin. Oh, shit. This wasn't good. Calculating in his head between the time differences, Joey decided that Dustin wouldn't be awake at seven o'clock on a Saturday morning, any way.  
  
He helped himself to one of the pancakes on the platter that Rafe had put on the table. Actually, the end result was closer to crepes - Rafe had sniffed and insisted that the American version of pancakes was a waste of flour, too thick and greasy for anyone to truly appreciate the flavor. He'd been forced to compromise with the rest of the students, who didn't value French cuisine like they should, and the final product was neither one nor the other. They tasted good, though, that was what mattered to Joey.  
  
Still, the vague feeling of guilt persisted. He'd call after the club fair, Joey promised himself.  
  
X  
  
Nikki begged off the trip to the school fair, saying that she was tired and wanted a nap; Ali steadfastly maintained that clubs were a waste of time; Darien simply shook his head and vanished from sight. Cam, Jenna, Lee, and Rafe agreed that it might turn out to be an interesting trip, after all. They walked a mile to the public transportation stop and waited for their bus.  
  
"I wonder if they have a culinary group?" Rafe said, looking quite enthusiastic.  
  
Jenna snorted. "Somehow, I don't think they're quite ready for your kind of food."  
  
"Why not?" Rafe asked curiously.  
  
"Generally, they just make breaded chicken, or something."  
  
"Ah! Poulet pané! I make a very nice one, with basilic to taste and une huile sensible--"  
  
"It's too sophisticated," Jenna insisted, further argument halted by the arrival of the bus.  
  
The driver eyed them suspiciously, wary of any traveling groups of teenagers. For a moment it looked as though he was going to refuse to carry them, but instead contented himself with scowling in the direction of their direction. Cam led the way to the few empty seats left in the back, vaguely offended by the accusatory glares.  
  
Lee, however, seemed to find it rather amusing. "How can you not laugh? He looks like an angry gorilla."  
  
Joey snorted softly, picturing the man being studied by Jane Goodall. "And what sort of species might you be?" the imaginary doctor asked the man softly, and ran away in fright when he pounded his chest and screeched in rage. He grinned to himself. It was pretty funny, now that he thought about it.  
  
X  
  
"That's -all-?"  
  
"Well, we didn't have much--"  
  
"Why didn't you do more tests?"  
  
"I told you, there was only so much time."  
  
"Still, that's nothing. The data--"  
  
"If you cared so much about the data, you wouldn't have pushed us into this. Any more and it would have been suspicious. We can't afford that."  
  
"You seem to be forgetting who's in charge, here."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
X  
  
Joey walked into the gymnasium, which had been brightly decorated for the occasion. "CPHS WELCOMES YOU TO THE 13th ANNUAL CLUB FAIR!!" the sign proclaimed cheerfully. Booths had been set up at regular intervals along the walls with another block in the middle, creating aisles that could be navigated easily. Each booth had its own sign and club representatives sitting on chairs, watching the crowd with amusement.  
  
He could see that most of the other students there were freshmen, although there were a few new arrivals who were also examining what the school had to offer. Rafe promptly dragged their group over to the Culinary Club booth. "Bon jour!" he greeted them.  
  
"Uh... hi..." the girl said, a little off put by Rafe's enthusiasm.  
  
"Of what food do you cook?" Rafe asked, mangling his English in his excitement.  
  
"Easy things, stuff that everyone can do," the girl replied, edging her chair back a few inches. "We make mud pies towards the end of the year."  
  
"-Mud pies-!" Rafe exclaimed, affronted. "And people eat them?"  
  
"It's not -made- of mud," the girl said, "It's crumbled brownies and things."  
  
"I -see-," Rafe said grimly, narrowing his eyes.  
  
Joey didn't hear the rest of the exchange because he wandered off to have a look at some of the other booths. He himself wasn't interested in cooking, being quite horrible at it. The last time he'd tried making dinner, his parents had taken a bit each and smiled in that way that showed they were too nice to tell him it was horrible.  
  
To put it succinctly, he was not interested in the Culinary Club, although he could hear Rafe's arguments even across the gym.  
  
He paused several feet in front of one booth, labeled "GSA - Gay/Straight Alliance." He wasn't sure whether to go closer, but the guy sitting behind the counter grinned at him. "Hey there," he said, waving Joey over.  
  
Joey nodded and asked, "May I have one of the papers?" There was a pile of them on the floor.  
  
"Sure," the guy said, leaning over. The pause gave Joey a chance to sneak a better glimpse of what he looked like. The teenager, probably seventeen or eighteen, was a bit shorter than Joey, or looked as though he would be if he weren't sitting. He had a stocky build, brown hair and eyes, a rather puppy-dog look accentuated by deep dimples. Very cute.  
  
"New this year?" he asked Joey conversationally.  
  
"Yep," Joey said, "I'm Joey."  
  
"Kevin," the guy replied, holding out a hand. They shook; Kevin had a strong grip.  
  
"Are there... a lot of members?" Joey asked after thinking how to phrase the question.  
  
"Actually, yeah," Kevin said. "Not everyone's gay, of course, but," here he imitated one of the teachers, adding a comical grimace, "CPHS supports diversity and tolerance in all its shapes and forms."  
  
Joey laughed appreciatively. "Hey, that's not a bad impersonation."  
  
"Of course," Kevin said, and grinned. "Well, hope to see you at the next meeting - it's this Thursday."  
  
"I'll be there," said Joey, with a returning smile. He walked off with a slight bounce to his step, pleased to have found what looked to be a nice group of kids... and he didn't realize until later that his resolution to call Dustin had completely slipped his mind.  
  
X  
  
Jenna Sintor perused the aisles thoughtfully, reading the banners without much interest. So far, nothing had really stood out. There was the computer club, but she wasn't fond of the computers, really, and the boys sitting behind it had attempted to catch so desperately that she hurried onto the next booth without a second glance.  
  
This time, however, she found her face forming a large smile. "CAR CLUB," said the sign. Now this is more like it, she thought cheerfully.  
  
After the initial disappointment of the culinary club, Rafe had wandered off to one side of the gym, rather moodily. Lee followed after him, slightly curious at the sudden shift in mood. He was a rather bouncy personality usually... she wondered at the sudden change. "Hey, Rafe?"  
  
"What?" he said, a bit surprised at the peevish note in his voice.  
  
"Are you feeling all right?"  
  
"Fine. Magnifique." Face blank, he turned away from her and shoved his hands into his pockets, stalking off. Lee blinked, more in surprise than anything else. The girl's glasses slipped and she slid them back to the bridge of her nose, watching the French boy as he disappeared through the door, presumably to lurk somewhere until the rest of them finished browsing.  
  
The Institute students had been acting very oddly recently... She followed after him, and found that he was standing at one of the floor-to-ceiling length windows that opened out onto the school's courtyard. "Hey," she said, standing next to him and looking as well. There was nothing there to catch the eye, only a few benches, one tipped onto its side, and a rather gnarled looking tree that seemed to be on the verge of death. The grass grew long and untamed, licking the sides of the chipped-painted benches.  
  
"Rafe, you can tell us if something's wrong."  
  
"It is not."  
  
Lee glanced sideways at him. "You're just not acting like yourself."  
  
"I don't know why," Rafe said, sounding puzzled. "It happened yesterday also." He shrugged and continued, a bit more cheerfully. "I suppose it is part of being a teenager."  
  
"Yeah, which you're almost -finished-," Lee snorted.  
  
"I told you, I don't know," Rafe said, and shrugged. "It will not help if you continue to ask." 


End file.
